LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



( s & %~ 



E UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



THE SOUL. 



THE SOUL, 



ITS SORROWS AND ITS ASPIRATIONS: 



AN ESSAY TOWARDS 



THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE SOUL, AS THE 
TRUE BASIS OF THEOLOGY. 



BY 

FRANCIS WILLIAM NEWMAN, 

FORMERLY FELLOW OF BALLIOL COLLEGE, OXFORD, AND 
AUTHOR OF 
" A HISTORY OF THE HEBREW MONARCHY." 



" He that believeth hath the witness in himself." — John. 
11 We too believe, and therefore speak." — Paul. 



LONDON: 

GEORGE MANWARING, Successor to JOHN CHAPMAN, 
8 } KING WILLIAM STREET, STRAND. 



M.DCCC.LXIL 



The Library 
otf Congress 



WASHINGTON 



Q 



PREFACE 

TO FIRST EDITION. 



I have been at a loss for a title to this Essay, which* 
while short enough, would fairly warn the reader of its 
character. I at first entitled it, an Essay on the Positive 
Foundations of Practical Religion ; and afterwards, On 
the Directness of Knowledge in Things Spiritual : but 
gradually found that it was necessary to go into such 
details concerning the Pathology of the spiritual organ, 
that I might possibly seem to have entrapped the reader 
into a more experimental discussion than he could have 
calculated on. My present title, I think, gives fair warn- 
ing to those who dislike such books ; and at the same time 
sufficiently well explains the end in view. 

By the Soul we understand that side of human nature 
upon which we are in contact with the Infinite, and with 
God, the Infinite Personality : in the Soul therefore alone 
is it possible to know God ; and the correctness of our 
knowledge must depend eminently on the healthy, active 
and fully developed condition of our organ. While the 
well-being of Man is the chief reason for coveting a know- 
ledge of God, and all sound theology must aim ultimately 
at a practical end, the direct object of this Essay is never- 
theless more scientific than practical. A Natural History 
of the Soul demands some notice of its diseased as well as 
its healthy state, and of its growth from infancy towards 
maturity. How this is a basis for Theology will appear 
of itself. 



vi 



PREFACE. 



The analogy and contrast between Moral and Spiritual 
knowledge deserves remark. A long period passed in the 
history of mankind, during which Morals w T ere regarded 
as something essentially Dogmatic, and indeed to a con- 
siderable extent Arbitrary and varying with political insti- 
tutions. The Morality of every great national system was 
long supposed to depend entirely on the external authority 
which promulgated it : only in the later stages of mental 
culture is it clearly discerned, that Ethics, as a science, is 
as unchangeable as the ethical nature of man. Thence- 
forward the idea that there can be anything arbitrary in 
morals faded away ; and the authoritative sanction which 
is superadded to moral precepts became valued, not as 
that which is essential to guarantee their truth to a culti- 
vated moral nature, but as that which (like parental com- 
mand) enforces action while the moral sense is in its 
infancy. And this was perhaps the very feeling of the 
great apostle Paul towards the law of Moses. He vene- 
rated its precepts, as a mature man those of his aged 
schoolmaster ; whose rod he no longer dreads, though he 
sees it to be wholesome that he once dreaded it : but after 
Faith was come, he was no longer under the Schoolmaster. 
So also, that in spiritual things each worshipper sees by a 
light within him, and is directly dependent on God, not 
on his fellow men, is an axiom pervading the thought of 
every New-Testament writer. 

In Morals, it is something to gain external right conduct, 
even if there be as yet no internal love of goodness or 
insight into its nature ; hence the Dogmatic principle 
derives there a real practical value, which is developed in 
Law. It is important to keep people from mutual violence, 
even by an armed police or by arguments addressed to 
selfishness : and such constraint of the conduct by fear or 
by other lower motives, is a part of necessary training. It 
is a highly valuable result, if a man avoid falsehood and 
impurity, though he may know no better reason than his 



PREFACE. 



vii 



father's or his priest's command. But there not only is no 
spiritual object in his worshipping God solely because a 
father or a priest commands it, but the very statement is 
intrinsically absurd. That is not worship at all, which is 
rendered in obedience to mere dictation ; for worship is a 
state of the Affections, and these are not under the controul 
of the Will. A man who desires to worship, but has little 
heart for it, can only say to God, " Draw me, and I will 
follow after Thee f and he must needs have some heart in 
him, to say as much as this. At the suggestion or order 
of another we may present our bodies in a church or at a 
confessional, (which, if done without insight, is a mora!, 
not a spiritual, obedience,) but it is essentially impossible to 
worship God spiritually unless we are drawn and led by 
forces internal to the Soul itself. The coming of the 
Spirit into a system of Law, is that which intrinsically 
converts it into Gospel. It is useful to have spiritual 
teachers : and if they be wise, it is wise to listen reverently 
to them : but their lessons have not been successful, until 
the learner has gained an eye for seeing the truth ; and 
believes no longer because of his teacher's word, but 
because he has an Anointing from the Holy One, and 
knoweth all things. And this is the sole object of spiritual, 
as distinguished from moral, teaching, — to minister the 
Spirit ; to impart spiritual eyesight, and spiritual forces. 
Those truths, and those only, are properly to be called 
Spiritual, the nature of which admits of their being 
directly discerned in the Soul, just as Moral truths in the 
Moral Sense : and he is a spiritual man, not who believes 
these at second hand, (which is a historical or dead faith,) 
but who sees internally, and knows directly. To guide 
towards the method of ascertaining these, is the object of 
the present treatise : and whatever may at first seem to be 
digressive, is nevertheless intended to conduce to a greater 
fulness of insight into this cardinal point. 

The First Chapter treats of the Infancy of the Soul, 



viii 



.PREFACE. 



under that rudimentary Religion, which we may possess 
without conscious reflection on self; — that in which we 
contemplate the great external realities of Faith, as if we 
had no personal relations towards them. It ends with 
the establishment of reverence towards a Personal Deity, 
when Morals and Religion at length coalesce. The Second 
Chapter concerns the spiritual phenomena called out by 
the sense that we ought to be what we are not, in the 
presence of God. It ought (if it were scientifically com- 
plete) to include all the dreadful results of Remorse and 
capricious or gloomy Asceticism ; but I shrank from the 
odious task as needless, and have depicted only a few 
strongly-marked, but not fanatical experiences, issuing in 
happy results. The Third Chapter exhibits the soul 
struggling after a sense of its Personal Relation to God, 
with the happy and remarkable results of its success, and 
its means of recovering this sense, when lost. The Fourth 
treats of the Ideal of spiritual excellence, and of the Aids 
from without towards attaining it. The Fifth discusses 
the grounds on which the soul forms Hopes and Aspira- 
tions concerning a future life ; and the Sixth closes with 
reflections on the state and prospects of practical Christi- 
anity. 

If these pages shall save any persons from the deso- 
lating negations which are abroad, and show those who 
know not on what to rest their faith, to what quarter they 
must look for solid ground ; and still more, if I shall have 
stimulated independent thought in men of holy feeling 
and devout practice, and shall have made them meditate 
solemnly on the insufficiency of our present Theology to 
evangelize any portion of the professedly unbelieving 
world; — I ought to regard this as recompensing me for 
the very serious moral effort, which it has cost me to 
publish this book. 



March 1849. 



PREFACE 



TO THIRD EDITION. 



The best men cannot agree theoretically concerning Re- 
ligion, while they differ on Metaphysics and Logical 
speculations : but their difference of judgment does not 
imply any want of candour, nor any mutual contempt. 
This belongs to an inferior order of mind and heart, which 
desires an excuse for thinking ill ; and to such it is wholly 
fruitless to enter into explanations. But, as far as pos- 
sible, to hinder any really candid persons from being 
misled by hostile reviewers, who find it easier to pretend 
that I contradict myself, than to aid towards positive 
truth ; I must add a few words to clear up my moral 
estimate of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures. 

The books so denoted differ extremely in moral value, as 
also in literary importance. Nevertheless they form, in 
some sense, an organic whole, since the later books grew 
out of the earlier ones ; the more puerile conceptions were 
gradually laid aside or transformed, and new ideas also 
were brought in gradually, and were grafted on to the old 
stock. We can therefore speak of the religion as having 
a certain Unity of its own, in spite of the enormous 
diversity between Genesis, Leviticus, Isaiah, and John. 

This Unity seems to me mainly to depend on the belief 
of the Sympathy of the most High with his devoted 
servants, and his desire of their Moral Perfection. 

In this belief I think that there resides a prolific germ, 
which makes the Bible a book of vast worth and a root of 



X 



PREFACE. 



goodness to those who wisely venerate it. The doctrine 
may be found, occasionally expressed, in the best of the 
Greeks or Romans; but it pervades the Bible, and there- 
fore is constantly re-appearing in every form of Christianity. 

Nevertheless, there are numerous errors, not merely 
external, but moral and spiritual, in the Bible ; some pecu- 
liar to certain parts, others pervading the whole. These 
need not much affect the value of the book to those who 
know that it is imperfect, and who habitually seek to sepa- 
rate its pearls from its chaff. But to those who imagine the 
whole book to be infallible, its errors become always hurt- 
ful, often dangerous and sometimes fatal. As in every sect, 
if the founder be venerated too much, his weakest points of 
character and his most foolish opinions become typical to 
his followers ; so the errors of the Bible are precisely what 
must become characteristic of those who bow to it fanati- 
cally. Its errors indeed are no more self-coherent than 
error in general ; hence many schools of error are neces- 
sarily propagated from it. Of these, by far the worst is 
the Papal school, which has ended by dethroning the Bible, 
but was founded on a slavish adoration of its letter. 

Individuals may rise to the highest pitch of moral ex- 
cellence as yet possible to man, while holding to a theoretic 
confession of the infallibility of the Bible. But it is my 
conviction, that the Protestant world collectively can no 
more make progress without overthrowing this dogma, 
than the Papal world without overthrowing the colla- 
teral superstition of the Pope's infallibility. In the case of 
any recent writer, we all understand that to idolize him is 
to convert every accidental error of his into a fountain of 
pestilence : and, however great our veneration of his wis- 
dom, we know instinctively that to proclaim his words in- 
fallible would be profane and dangerous beyond calcula- 
tion. 

And here I complain, that men put Falsehood for Truth, 



PREFACE. 



XI 



in charging presumption and audacity on those who shrink 
from investing a human book or a human person with di- 
vine honours. To take on ourselves the responsibility of 
avowing that all the words bound up between certain lids 
are Absolute Truth, — to guarantee all the consequences 
that follow from such a dogma, — this is extremely auda- 
cious; as everybody at once feels it if applied to any 
new example. The audacity and presumption of bidding 
men to run all risks of pernicious error, in accepting the 
words of a book as all divine, certainly is not obviated by 
the fact that the book is old and foreign, and its origin 
thereby somewhat obscured. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I, Introductory Remarks 1 
II. Sense of the Infinite without us . . 7 

III. Sense of Sin 45 

IY. Sense of Personal Relation to God . . 77 

V. Spiritual Progress 106 

YI. Hopes concerning Future Life . . . 135 
VII. Prospects of Christianity . 148 



THE SOUL, 



ITS SORROWS AND ITS ASPIRATIONS. 



CHAPTER I. 



INTRODUCTORY REMARKS, 



Against the earlier editions of this Essay, objections have 
been urged, which seem to be based on doctrines in Morals or 
Metaphy sics different from what I acknowledge. I have there- 
fore determined to prefix consecutively some judgments on these 
subjects which recommend themselves to me. Of course nothing 
new is pretended : any real novelty would strongly imply error. 

1. To acknowledge the Unity of the human mind, is no reason 
against speaking of separate Faculties. Even if, at all times, in 
all actions, all parts of the mind act together, it is not the less 
certain that different men have different excellences and different 
abilities, and that the parts of the mind have in them a different 
prominence, and are differently blended. Therefore we are forced 
to say, one man excels in Imagination, another in Logical Analysis, 
a third in Moral Discrimination, a fourth has a genius for Com- 
bination, and so on. But in thus recognizing Special Faculties, 
we do not disintegrate the mind. 

2. Demonstration, or Proof, consists in so connecting a hitherto 
doubtful proposition with one or more that are undoubted, as to 
assure us of the truth of the former. Hence First Principles 

B 



s 



THE SOUL t 



cannot be demonstrated ; for if they could be referred to others 
more evident, (or earlier known,) they would not be first prin- 
ciples. Of course therefore, the foundations of all science 
transcend formal logic. 

3. First Principles commend themselves to us as Presumptions, 
by their apparent reasonableness. They ara confirmed, first, by 
general acceptance, — or by an acceptance widening with men's 
intelligence ; secondly, by the perpetual harmony of the results 
drawn from them by severe reasonings and manifold combinations. 

4. No alledged first principle can be even plausible, when it 
is arbitrary and wilful. Some persons are so infatuated, or so 
dishonest, as to argue, that " since we must have some first prin- 
ciples, and cannot prove any, we may as well assume one, as 
another." But certainly we must not assume any which mani- 
festly refutes itself. A man would seem to be joking, who pro- 
posed for belief, as the first principle of all human knowledge, 
that the Grand Lama of Tibet is omniscient, or the Archbishop 
of Paris infallible; for we have certainly no more a priori know- 
ledge of these personages than of a thousand others ; and it is 
mere wilfulness to prefer Paris to Canterbury, or the Lama to the 
Sultan. Yet it is very common in certain schools of religion, to 
pretend that the infallibility of " the Church, 55 or " the Bible," 
can be, and is, a first principle of human knowledge ; when 
even the Unity of the many societies collectively called the 
Church, and of the many books collectively called the Bible, is by 
no means a priori clear ; and when, at any rate, the Church is 
not the only community in the world, nor the Bible the only 
book ; when therefore it is prima facie quite as plausible to claim 
infallibility for every other community, and every other book, — 
if no reasons are to be given. 

So far from admitting such propositions even provisionally, we 
must evidently disbelieve them until proved, and must necessarily 
demand an exceedingly cogent proof of that which has so little 
ii priori to accredit it. 

5. Inconsistency is a certain proof of Error ; and in fact, Error 
is so easily incoherent, that we can hardly believe it ever to pos- 
sess absolute harmony. In proportion therefore as our doctrines 
admit of combination and application, so as to bring them within 
the regions where they might be confuted, if false,— does our 
confidence in their truth accumulate, if no confutation is met. 
Truth can have no confirmations, except as we attain some power 
of detecting error. Therefore, without a development of incre- 
dulity, there can be no single step towards wisdom and perma- 
nent knowledge. Yet the non-detection of incongruities can 



INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 



s 



never demonstrate that there are none to be detected, or that 
our conceptions agree with an external reality. If any one 
chooses to imagine human life to be a self-consistent dream, it is 
useless to argue with him, for we certainly shall never refute 
him, 

6. Some assume as a first principle, that the Mind is made for 
Truth, or, that our faculties are veracious. Perhaps the real 
first principle here rather is, that " no higher arbiter of truth is 
accessible to man, than the mind of man." When people treat 
this as a proud sentiment, they do but show confusion of thought. 
On the contrary, it avows the sober proposition (which is cer- 
tain, if anything can be), that man is finite, tied down within his 
own sphere, limited by his limited faculties ; this is, in other 
words, to avow that he has no inlets or tests of truth, other than 
those faculties afford. 

To oppose this by asserting that the infallibility of Church or 
Bible is a first principle, needing no proof, is wilful and ridiculous, 
as has been said. To oppose it by asserting such infallibility, 
while yet allowing that the infallibility needs to be proved, is to 
blunder grossly. For no proof can have a certainty higher than 
the accuracy and veracity of the faculties which conduct the 
proof. 

If, by divine enlightenment, individuals receive what is equi- 
valent to new faculties, they may become proportionably more 
capable of discerning and attaining truth. But such new facul- 
ties, if intended as an inheritance of all mankind, are not to be 
disowned as not human ; nor can we dispense with testing by 
the old the soundness of the new; nor can any one, on the 
ground of his possessing such new faculties, claim belief, at least 
without first proving to men's ordinary understanding that he 
does possess them in some peculiar and exclusive measure. 

7. Moral Truth is developed by experience and reasoning com- 
bined with the faculty peculiarly named Moral ; which alone can 
pronounce on the relative value of inward impulses, desires, and 
pleasures, and alone decides that we ought to follow the higher 
and nobler. Morality cannot be resolved into the pursuit of the 
greatest happiness for the greatest number : first, because it re- 
mains to settle what is Happiness ; secondly, because it remains 
to answer : why ought I to seek any man's happiness ? To say 
that it is my interest, is not identical with saying that it is my 
duty. 

A meaner soul chooses a meaner thing as its best. If 
one man regard Ease, a second Power, a third Knowledge, 
a fourth Active Excitement, a fifth Love, as the chief good s 

B 2 



i 



THE SOUL : 



neither observation nor argument can mediate between them. 
The mind itself decides which ought to be preferred ; and in 
enunciating the word ought, assumes its moral position. If any 
one deliberately prefers selfish profligacy to kindness and justice, 
and would rather have a jocund and boisterous course, with the 
chance of its being a short one, than any tranquil happiness, this 
is nothing but a difference of Taste, until a moral judgment in- 
terferes, to pronounce the one wrong and the other right ; nor do 
we make him virtuous, by merely inducing him to choose an- 
other sort of selfishness. 

The brutes in general act by unconscious impulse : a mere 
rational agent will act also by conscious impulse, which ws call 
Motive ; but a moral agent is guided by convictions of Duty. 

8. For the growth of the Moral faculties human society is 
needful, and human history is profitable ; but no one particular 
society is needed, nor any particular history. Human Morality 
could not be altered by the disappearance of a nation or an in- 
dividual out of history ; for it depends, not on what this or that 
man is, but on what human nature collectively is. A remarkable 
individual or nation may at certain times by example have sti- 
mulated new moral thought in our race, but their personality 
does not enter Moral Science. It may be true that " Moses was 
the meekest of men it may be equally true, that his conduct 
led to new views of the virtue of meekness : but no proposition 
of moral philosophy ought to contain the name of Moses. Its 
propositions are general ; those of History are special, or relate 
to individuals. 

Nor can Morals be made argumentatively to depend on facts 
of remote history, without disowning the universality of moral 
obligation. This universality assumes a direct and homely 
knowledge of right and wrong. If I am to obey the Ten Com- 
mandments on the ground that a divine voice pronounced them 
from Mount Sinai (and not because I and you and collective 
humanity discern them to be right), every one of us needs to 
ascertain a very distant and obscure matter of history, before he 
is under obligation to obey the decalogue.* 

All the same remarks apply, as to the essential difference 
between a Historical and a Spiritual proposition. 

9. The Moral faculty has been above described, as that which 
pronounces on the relative worth of our different impulses or at- 
tractions, and enunciates the duty of selecting the higher. By 

* Of course the above is mere illustration. The Fourth Commandment 
of the Decalogue is without validity for Gentiles. 



INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 



5 



the Will is understood, the inward power which actually makes 
a selection. Thus, if we are simultaneously impelled, — to do 
what is just, — to gratify a friend, — and to gain lucre or honour ; 
— and it be impossible to secure more than one of these ends ; 
by an act of the Will we choose and adopt one of these. 

If no power of choice existed in man, but he were determined 
by an externally imposed necessity, it would be absurd in others 
to blame him, and a very superfluous self-torment to blame him- 
self. Yet we know, that without self-reproof, there can be no 
deep-seated or fruitful virtue. In proportion therefore as the 
existence of active Will is disbelieved, practical virtue is impaired. 

The same follows in another way ; namely, since no man will 
make an effort, unless he believes that there is power within him, 
No sane man will struggle to break a chain which he believes 
will defy his utmost exertions. No insane man will move a limb 
which he fancies to be paralyzed. If we have no power of Will, 
to choose and to reject, and thereby to determine and guide our 
action, self-discipline and self-control are really impossible ; nor 
will he* who believes it to he impossible, ever attempt it. — Those 
who call themselves Necessarians have of course some good quali- 
ties without cultivation : others have been cultivated by them 
from childhood, before they became converts to this creed ; many 
virtues have thus become habitual to them : but from the time that 
they adopted the doctrine of Necessarianism, they have inevitably 
ceased to cultivate virtue, except at intervals while forgetting 
their creed and believing as other men. If any one could hold 
the creed from childhood, and the belief were always active, he 
neither would nor could attempt self-guidance, and would be a 
mere creature of desire. 

10. Though the Will is a real power, it is limited, like other 
powers ; and it grows up out of insensible beginnings. Moreover, 
it is either weakened or superseded by Habit. In a vicious 
habit, the Will is oppressed or paralyzed ; in a virtuous habit, all 
effort of the will is superfluous : right action is carried on, as in 
preserving the balance of the body, without exertion or struggle, 
and the moral strength is reserved for other service. 

A perfect state of the Will does not suffice for right conduct : 
knowledge, experience, and other intellectual combinations are 
often requisite to decide what is right, in external affairs. 

11. Wherever there may be foresight of action, we recognize 
the existence of Law, which implies, not Compulsion, but Cer- 
tainty. In the movements of inanimate matter, all now recog- 
nize pervading Law. At the other extreme, where a perfect Will 
resides, there also is Law; for it is certain that it will act aright ; 



6 



THE SOUL. 



and another mind sufficiently powerful would be able to predict 
its doings. The Habit of right action, is a Law made by itself, 
for itself. — But where Will is imperfect, and where there is a 
struggle, an element of uncertainty proportion ably interferes, and 
instead of one Law, there are two or more Laws crossing and 
clashing. This is not the sphere of divine harmony; it is the 
sphere of human conflict and partial lawlessness : and to look 
for certainty in it, is very gratuitous. 



CHAPTER II. 



SENSE OF THE INFINITE WITHOUT US. 



All human knowledge, like human power, is bounded ; and 
it is then most accurate, when we can sharply draw the line which 
shows where ignorance begins. In actual life, our region of 
sensible light, where the common understanding guides us, 
is always encircled with a dimmer belt, beyond which are 
glimpses of partial light, and then, infinite darkness ; but, 
though we do not pass suddenly from positive knowledge to 
absolute ignorance, we are, in every direction, distinctly aware of 
both states. To different minds, moreover, the sphere through 
which the understanding ranges, varies exceedingly ; and many 
adults, especially in savage nations, remain all their lives like 
children. 

It is thus a condition of human existence, to be surrounded 
with but moderately diffused light, that instructs the under- 
standing, and illimitable haziness, that excites the imagination : 
and this being our natural and necessary case, the question sug- 
gests itself, whether the obscurity, as well as the light, is 
adapted to call forth any sentiments within us, or in any way 
tend to the perfection of our nature. And happily, the reply to 
this question immediately suggests itself, upon referring to the 
case of children. How lovely in a child is that modesty, which 
springs from an unaffected consciousness of ignorance ; espe- 
cially when joined with a belief that others know. When new 
knowledge puffs up, and amiable diffidence is lost, all feel that a 
bad exchange has been made. If so, we attain one fixed point. 
We perceive that the region of dimness is not wholly without 
relations towards our moral state. There is a proper effect 



s 



THE SOUL : 



which it ought to produce upon us, and which deserves to be 
more closely analyzed. 

The case of the child will still farther aid our examination. 
Eeverence towards parental judgments not only is approved as 
salutary, in order to gain the advantage of a wiser guidance ; 
but in itself, especially in the earlier years of childhood, com- 
mends itself to all as a beautiful and excellent state of feeling. 
A very young child has no measure whatever of a parent's wis- 
dom : it is to him unbounded. He neither knows, nor expects 
ever to know, the limits of it ; and, therefore, his reverence is 
capable of being absolute. A w r hole world of sentiment is wrapt 
up in the relations felt and acted upon by such a child ; sen- 
timent, which none are brutish enough to fail to appreciate. 
Not all the knowledge, nor all the wisdom, nor all the prudence 
and self-control, nor all the manly independence, which a child 
of five years old could, under human limitations, attain, would 
compare in value to the loving reverence, sure trust, and unre- 
flecting joy which such a child may exercise towards a parent, 
whose wisdom and goodness appear to him illimitable. 

Are then these exercises of heart a source of happiness and of 
moral perfection in infancy, and are they not desirable for the 
adult ? Or are they desirable, yet not possible, for those, whose 
understandings have opened wide enough to see that all human 
minds are limited, all human hearts shallow, and that no object 
worthy of absolute reverence comes within the reach of sense ? 
Certainly it is no artificial dogma, invented by priests or needing 
enforcement by princes, that the man who has reverence for 
nothing has a hard, dry, and barren soul. In the English tongue, 
indeed, the very word Soul appears to have been intended to 
express that side of our nature, by which we are in contact 
with the Infinite. The Soul is to things spiritual, what the 
Conscience is to things moral ; each is the seat of feeling, and 
thereby tlie organ of specific information to us, respecting its own 
subject. If all human Souls and Consciences felt absolutely 
alike, we should fitly regard their enunciations as having a cer- 
tainty on a par with the perceptions of Sense : only, as Sense is 
matured in an earlier stage, and is less dependent on higher 
cultivation than the Conscience and the Soul, the decisions of 
Sense are undoubtedly far easier to ascertain — not therefore 
more certain when ascertained. 

In the child and in the savage, as the Conscience is but half 
developed, so is it manifestly with the Soul. The former is 
built up out of certain rudimentary sympathies and perceptions, 
co-operating with an experience of human tendencies, under the 



SENSE OF THE INFINITE. 



9 



stimulus of which the moral powers expand, until moral Truth 
is at length discerned by direct vision. The Natural History of 
the Soul is far less simple, as must be expected of a higher 
organ : its diseases also are more hidden and more embarrassing, 
and in consequence its pathology will assume an apparently 
disproportionate part of a true theology. For if Theology is 
" a science of God, 5> it cannot omit to treat of the bright or 
sullied state of the mirror, in which alone God's face is to be 
seen. How to keep it ever bright, is the problem for every 
practical Christian ; to unfold the practical rules in connection 
with an extended knowledge of the entire man, so as to reconcile 
Passion, Prudence, Duty, Free Thought, and Reverence, is per- 
haps the highest form that the problem can assume to the Theo- 
logian. 

In order to see the whole from its commencement, it is well to 
begin from the study of the elementary phenomena out of which 
are evolved the ideas of something boundless beyond us- — of 
Supernatural Power — of Divine Existence — and finally of One 
Infinite God ; and, in passing, the collateral degraded types of 
each new sentiment or judgment will be remarked upon. 

1. AWE. 

The child of a good and wise parent, before attaining an age 
when it can meditate on the parent's finite powers, is certain to 
learn that there is One higher still, worshipped by him with 
prayer and praise. This is at first, and for some time, mere 
hearsay, destitute of any religious power on the heart, until a 
higher idea of infinity is attained. The gloom of night (deadly 
night, as Homer terms it), more universally perhaps than any 
other phenomenon, first awakens an uneasy sense of vastness. 
A young child accustomed to survey the narrow limits of a 
lighted apartment, wakes in the night and is frightened at the 
dim vacancy. No nurse's tales about spectres are needed to 
make the darkness awful. Nor is it from fear of any human 
or material enemy : it is the negation, the unknown, the unli- 
mited, which excites and alarms ; and sometimes the more, if 
mingled with glimpses of light. 

A moral feeling blends with the sense of the awful unknown 
and infinite, when Death comes before a child's mind, especially 
if it fall upon one known and loved ; and at a more adult age its 
effect is proportionably increased. Whither is our beloved one 
gone ? Does he exist ? Can he hear us ? What a world of 
possibilities are presented to the imagination ! Tender hope 

£ 5 



10 



THE SOUL: 



suggests that the spirit of the deceased still hovers about us, 
still watches us, still loves to know that we remember him. Yet 
what sharpness of thought can pierce this veil and prove that 
any of these things are true ? There may be a brighter scene 
beyond the grave, at least for those who are so kind or brave as 
our lost one ; or it may be, that while his shade flits about in 
air, it is nothing to him ; it is but a delusive ghost, in which he 
is not at all. Such are probably the alternatives which present 
themselves to the untutored mind : a misty and infinite region 
of possible existence is opened to it ; and as often as evil con- 
science goads a man, he becomes less brave in the contemplation 
of death. 

Among places and circumstances, perhaps the darkness of 
Groves may be made prominent, as conducive to religious awe. 
The very name of a grove in Latin (lucus) is implicated with 
religion. The grove of the Eumenides was to an Athenian the 
most awe-striking of places. To the ancient Germans, groves 
were the proper temples of the gods. Among the Hebrews 
likewise, as with their Canaanite neighbours, the tendency to 
worship in groves was enough to overpower positive commands 
to make offerings in Jerusalem only. Nor will any one wonder 
at this, who knows what it is to walk alone by night under thick 
trees. A good conscience, and a heart not unused to pious com- 
munings, is only enough to repel painful tremors, except in those 
whom habit has deadened ; and even these — though brave and 
stout men — unless fortified by intelligent devoutness, are liable 
to sudden panic. We must repeat, it is not bodily enemies that 
they dread; but a sense of the infinite, the unseen, the unknown 
— pierces through and perhaps unmans them. 

So much having been obtained as a foundation, Awe, if it 
cannot be and ought not to be annihilated, ought to take some 
moral form. But even in this early stage numberless deviations 
take place, and mark especially the rudest Paganism. We may 
embrace them under the general name of Fetishism, which here 
claims attention. 

In its simplest form, Fetishism ascribes divine virtue to some 
common object ; to a stone, a beast, a tree, or a scrap of writing. 
Any of these may be made a god, an amulet or talisman ; or may 
vary from the one character to the other. The worshipper dares not 
use his common sense, which would reject these absurdities ; be- 
cause his soul is sufficiently awakened to suggest that there is an 
occult power in nature transcending his reasoning faculties. He 
has gratuitously, indeed, attached the power to a definite object ; 
but he is not trained to observe within toliat limits he is to follow 



SENSE OF THE INFINITE. 



11 



his understanding, and where it is salutary to trust his imagina- 
tion and faith to go beyond it ; hence the fear of offending some- 
thing divine paralyzes his powers. Natural phenomena probably 
in many cases commence such delusions. The falling of a 
meteoric stone is a highly exciting event. Such a stone, in an 
ignorant people, is certain to be revered, perhaps worshipped ; 
and then is likely so to break down the objections of common 
sense, as to increase the predisposition to similar prostrations of 
soul. To knock off a bit of the fetish as a talisman, might seem 
too daring ; but to adopt for such a purpose a piece of stone 
similar in appearance to it, would be an easy progress. If one 
man has a talisman, others wish for it, and a premium is offered 
for the manufacture of charms. While a nation is in this state of 
ignorance, some or other event is almost certain to commence 
such superstition ; and any commencement suffices to ensure a 
continuation. Among the savages of Africa, of Asia, of America, 
the form of the result varies, but the spirit and the spiritual con- 
sequences are the same. The incipient cravings of the soul are 
in a certain way satisfied, but so as to arrest their farther develop- 
ment. To the unknown and the infinite, no moral element, nor 
in fact even any personality, has been ascribed. Nay, it has been 
reduced into a finite sensible shape. One fragment of Deity has 
been as it were embalmed for awe ; but it has no life nor life- giving 
power. 

In the same stage a gross and hard-drawn picture of an after- 
life is often adopted with firm belief. An unseen world is 
imagined, probably under ground, where the nations of the de- 
parted reside ; and in this Tartarus different souls have a better 
or w r orse lot. So far there is little amiss ; but next enters the 
idea, that men on earth can in some way affect the state of the 
dead. The simplest and most amiable form of the thought is, 
that offerings of meat and drink, of flowers and wine, at the grave 
of the deceased, allay his appetites and soothe his feelings. Out 
of this grows an art of propitiating the dead, perhaps also of 
consulting them ; and a class of men arises who profess skill in 
this art; they are the primitive priests or necromancers. As 
their credit takes root and their science unfolds itself, they are at 
length supposed to have power over the under-world. Their 
favour is purchased by costly gifts, and the warriors alternately 
tremble before them or trample them down. 

With the advance of cultivation, when the idea of a world of 
spirits has become familiar, Fetishism in many cases rises out of 
its primitive sottishness into a belief in spirits of magic. Arab 
superstition is in this respect a step higher than African. The 



12 



THE SOUL: 



genii of the Arabians appear at one moment as acted upon by 
spells or talismans, at another as the unseen powers, in fact 
spirits, who animate them. Here the human mind has pro- 
ceeded to add personality to the occult influences, but has not 
been able to disentangle the supernatural persons from the sacred 
object or fetish, and has systematized moreover the belief in a 
science which gives to man a control over these powers. To the 
genii in general no pre-eminency of moral character is ascribed. 
Nevertheless, so soon as personality is allowed them, it inevitably 
follows to conceive of some as better and some worse ; hence the 
doctrine of good and evil genii : out of which in due time is certain 
to grow the Persian idea of two great spirits, good and bad, and 
ultimately that of Monotheism, if general cultivation proceeds. 

But even in the midst of enlightened science and highly literate 
ages, errors fundamentally identical with those of Fetishism may 
and do exist, and with the very same results. As the savage 
adores the darkness without seeking or longing for light, so the 
cultivated man sometimes by a morbid sense dreads the light, 
lest it should interfere with the gloom which he thiuks necessary 
to religious awe. Not satisfied to take God's world as it is, he 
makes as it were an artificial darkness in order that he may be 
more religious ; as if there were danger lest the human mind 
should exhaust the mysteries of the universe, and leave no room 
for wonder and reverence. Of course it is not meant that the 
individual is conscious of this ; yet bystanders may see that there 
is in him a positive dread of clear notions, a suspicion that one 
who knows what his own words and professions mean cannot be 
reverential, a tendency to confound enigmas with mysteries, and 
to inculcate (under new names) a belief in charms and magic. A 
wafer blessed and water sprinkled by a priest are often invested 
over the breadth of Europe with magical virtue ; and the words 
of a creed, reverentially recited by one who does not profess to 
understand tbem, are oelieved to have power in heaven and hell. 
A " purgatory" of fire is imagined, where souls have their guilt 
burnt out of them in long time, unless indeed the mass-chanting 
priest give to these unfortunates an earlier release. On his 
unction and absolution the state of dying men depends ; for he 
keeps the keys of the courts above — we know not why or how, 
but because God has willed it. The priest may be both ignorant 
and wicked, yet he holds these celestial powers by virtue of his 
office, and his office by a magical investment derived from a man 
perhaps neither better nor wiser than he. The ordained and 
consecrated are all fetish : it is irreverent to pry closely into 
their pretensions. — In proportion as such fantasies prevail, re- 



SENSE OF THE INFINITE. 



13 



ligious growth is stunted. To abandon the common understanding 
becomes a necessary virtue ; after which, moral enormities may 
be incorporated with the system without revolting the worshipper. 
If the whole religion were of this kind, it would be as debasing 
as any possible Fetishism ; and such things now stand their 
ground only because they are generally combined with purer and 
holier principles; the influence of which for good imparts undue 
credit to these besotting superstitions. 

2 WONDER. 

But if such errors are escaped, the pure and reasonable result 
of Awe upon the soul is a pervading and active sense that we 
are as motes in the sunbeam, lost in immensity ; insects of an 
hour, enveloped with mystery, knowing neither whence we came 
nor whither we go. And this feeling of Awe is soon blended 
and softened by the sentiment of the Sublime and the Wonderful 
mixing with it. Of all natural objects the starry heavens pro- 
bably impart the most vivid conception of boundlessness, and the 
fullest feeling of sublimity, while the night itself, in which they 
are seen, aids their impression on the soul. Some, however, live 
in mountainous countries, or within view of the sea, and have, 
even in the day-time, magnificent objects in sight. Here it is 
natural to expect that the sentiment of the sublime would be more 
effectually cultivated ; but it is not always so. Par more depends 
on the susceptibility of the soul, than on the scene habitually 
presented to us ; and perhaps a stranger is more powerfully 
affected by the majesty of sea and mountain, than those who see 
them habitually. 

Nevertheless, it cannot be doubted that the ideas of the Sublime 
and of the Wonderful, however excited, rise in more or less energy 
in all human bosoms long before we attain adult age, and are 
characteristic of the species. A man without these ideas would 
be as great a monster as a man without love or power of laughter ; 
such a one, if in human form, would deserve to be judged an 
idiot. And herein lies the fundamental union of Poetry and 
Eeligion. Hence is it that the ancient Bard, Yates, or Prophet, 
united the characters of poet and religious teacher ; and in fact 
to feed upon the higher and sublime poetry is virtually an exercise 
of the soul — a preparation at least for actual religion. Its 
similarity to religious meditations is in many respects evident. 
As the same hymn of praise and love may be daily recited and 
wearies not ; as no new information for the understanding is 
coveted ; so the same lines of the poet eternally delight — the more 



14 



THE SOUL: 



perhaps because they are old. We dwell upon each word, and 
find the imagination more and more stimulated ; it is a never- 
ending feast ; for the wise poet does not limit his hearers to his 
own mind j but leaves room for them to range beyond him if they 
can. 

There is indeed an elementary religion, a certain religiosity, 
implied in the perception and enjoyment of the Sublime. The 
soul, awakened to a sense of the boundlessness of the universe, 
of its own essential littleness and inferiority, combines an aspi- 
ration after fuller knowledge with a devotional self-prostration in 
the presence of that power, p?inciple, or person, out of which we 
and all that we see has proceeded. Perhaps in this stage no 
definite judgment is formed, whether the power be, or be not, a 
conscious designing mind, or whether one or many ; in fact, all 
these hypotheses may be embraced alternately with the changes 
of feeling, while (through the absence of self-inspection) the 
person is unaware of it. There is also an elementary religion 
in speculations about an after-life, so long as they proceed from 
the feelings of the soul, and not from metaphysics or inventive 
fancy. To explore that dim abyss with wondering thoughtful- 
ness, though no conclusion be reached, is a profitable exercise of 
soul, which enlivens the conscience, and rectifies our views of 
earthly interests. Moral reverence in all this is not yet formed, 
yet the Wonder is reverential. Curiosity is not forbidden, but is 
sobered ; inquiry is encouraged, if it be in an earnest and grave 
spirit ; but in conjunction with these, there is the humility of 
conscious ignorance and littleness, and astonishment at powers to 
which no limit is seen. Such is the second stage of healthy 
development. 

But of this likewise we find numerous degraded types, in 
which the rising religion is marred. Curiosity having once ob- 
tained leave to pry into things and powers which surpass the 
understanding, becomes sportive, and luxuriates in fanciful in- 
vention, wholly unmoral, and into company with which nothing 
can force the conscience. Of this we have eminent instances in 
the gods of Greece, and in the fairies of the German and Persian 
tribes. To indulge in mens play with the ideas of things infinite, 
appears to be more fatal to religion than any other corruption. 
It can hardly be esteemed an alleviation of the evil, that the form 
moulded by wild fancy soon gets some hereditary sanction, and a 
fixed aspect, after which it is believed as a veritable likeness ; for 
the more intense the belief of notions which destroy ail reverence 
for the unknown and supernatural, the more hurtful the result. So 
long as a man is giving loose to such fancy, he is depraving his 



SENSE OF THE INFINITE. 



IS 



own religious faculties by egregious trifling; and a nation eminent 
for the tendency, can have depth neither in its religion nor in its 
conscience, which are forcibly kept apart. Perhaps it may be 
thought severe to pass this judgment on the Ionian tribes of 
Greece ; yet even if the result was checked by other causes, there 
is still too much truth in the remark to be withheld. In the 
same way, the writing and reading of fairy tales, in prose or 
verse, if I do not mistake, exerts whatever influence it has in the 
direction of deadening the religious sense.* Those who people 
the vague, unseen, and infinite world with beings not much 
superior to us, and in a moral aspect often inferior ; who become 
as it were familiar with these creations of their fancy ; not only 
can feel no reverence to them, but just in proportion as they 
realize the ideas, incapacitate themselves for any reverence at all. 
Puerile wonder remains as the deepest sentiment possible to them. 
A man may, no doubt, read the Midsummer NigJifs Bream, and 
get no harm from its fairy personages ; for the simple reason 
that they touch only the outside of his nature, excite no deep 
interest, and, however beautiful, are altogether frigid. But if 
the tale stirred him up deeply — if it seized firmly on his imagi- 
nation—and, much more, if it were actually believed, it would 
proportionably exhaust the sources of real devoutness. Under 
the same head will be included the grotesque devil-stories, and 
other legends of the Middle Ages. It has often been remarked 
how emphatically degrading must be the religion of an Italian, 
who whips the image of his saint when he has failed to obtain a 
request. But this is only a particular instance of the general 
proposition, that familiarity is antagonistic to devotional awe, and 
that we cannot make the world of spirits a place of amusement 
to the superficial fancy, without impairing our susceptibility to 
its sober and profound influences. 

The old religions, which sinned on this side, sometimes had a 
counterweight in the fantastic melancholy of other fictions. The 
sympathy of the Greek with Ceres for the disappearance of her 
daughter, and with Niobe for the slaughter of her beautiful 
children, was perhaps rather tender than reverential ; but the 
awe inspired by the Eumenides was true and deep ; and, in the 
opinion of Muller, the belief connected with the infernal gods 
was the only purifying part of the Greek religion. No earthly 

* Of course supernatural imagery may be a vehicle for pure and im- 
pressive sentiment; nay, may be of a grave and impressive character 
itself, as in Mr. Robert Landor's recent tale, called " The Fountain of 
Arethusa." I speak solely of such inventions as cannot be forced into 
contact with the conscience. 



16 



THE SOUL : 



enchanter could deliver the guilty soul by celebrating mass. 
Yet the dreadful alternative of gross superstition is this, that the 
graver view tends to cruel and horrible rites, while the fanciful 
and sportive sucks out the life-blood of devout feeling. 

Between these two extremes — -which were the besetting sins 
of Carthage and Gaul on the one hand, of Greece on the other 
— the Romans and the Egyptians appear to have held a wiser 
mean. Both the latter nations had the principle of reverence so 
deep, that they were susceptible of grovelling superstition even 
when their cultivation was considerably advanced. Egypt is 
regarded as the native land of secret doctrines or mysteries ; and 
such things seem to have been highly congenial to the Romans. 
The credulity of both appears to us astonishing ; yet dark and 
bloody rites were foreign to them, and at the same time they 
were far removed from puerile familiarity with their deities. 
Nevertheless, each nation fell at last into another, equally fatal, 
corruption ; into the worship of a hard hereditary ceremonial, 
unprompted by feeling, unrenewed by fresh inspiration. Thus 
the infinite became degraded into the finite, the divine into the 
petty or the bestial. The death of a cat, or the drinking of a 
chicken, were made of prime religious importance ; and though 
no gossiping poets dissolved their piety into lascivious dreams, 
the Hierophant and the Pontifex congealed it into grotesque 
shapes, immovable and lifeless as stone. 

3. ADMIRATION. 

The human mind opens in some degree to a perception of 
Beauty, as early as to that of Awe ; but Awe, as a sentiment, 
reaches its beneficial limit in a low stage of cultivation. The 
sense of Wonder also exists in much intensity, at a time when 
that of Beauty is little developed. Indeed this last advances but 
slowly towards perfection, and always perhaps falls short of it. 
Herein we see, that Beauty, though it exists in limited dimen- 
sions only, and seldom can inspire Awe — for Respect, Admira- 
tion, Rapture, rather than Reverence, Awe, Devoutness, express 
our feelings toward beauty, of whatever kind — still, Beauty has 
one element of infinity ; what is more, it is received by a single 
grasp of the soul, by an intuition which cannot be analyzed ; 
and, as we contemplate its higher specimens, we can feed upon 
them untiringly, finding no end of admiration and delight. 

In those great scenes of the visible world, the sublimity of 
which impresses us, we also generally discern much beauty. la 
the starry heavens indeed, there is sameness \ yet the eye only 3 



SENSE OF THE INFINITE. 



17 



and not the mind, gets weary in gazing on them. The tran- 
quillity of their beauty never becomes insipid, though there is so 
little variety. Yery different is the sunlit landscape ; in which 
the characters of beauty are too numerous to be counted, no one 
spot giving a view like the rest, nor one day like another. Yet 
here also, in that which changes least, as the falling of the cas- 
cade or the rolling of the sea, there is no satiety of admiration. 
How close to devout exercises of soul is this feeding of the 
heart on beauty, the epithets and metaphors of every langurge 
testify. We need therefore to examine the relation which it 
bears to religion. 

As Awe is softened into Eeverential Wonder, when the under- 
standing is sufficiently enlightened to save us from vain and 
degrading fears, so the latter sentiment warms into Admiration, 
when we discern the Beauty which invests the infinite world. 
As a glimpse of life beyond the grave, and a glance of the eye 
into the depths of space, are adapted to calm stormy passions so 
a tranquil resting of the soul, on whatever form of beauty, tends 
to impart cheerfulness, elasticity of spirits, and mute thankful- 
ness, towards — perhaps we know not whom. The child who 
gazes on the colours of the sunset, on the light which ripples 
with the water, or on the deep blue of the sky, is often ready to 
bound with speechless and unanalyzed delight. Nor need adults 
any higher beauty to call forth the same feelings, though the 
magnificent scenery of some favoured spots is appreciated by 
them with still keener zest. Thus, in short, to call forth the 
heart into admiration, and prepare it for love, is the appropriate 
function of all natural beauty. 

How far the beauty of the human countenance can here be in- 
cluded, is a question which may move debate. The living face 
of man is undoubtedly an infinite depth, inasmuch as it depicts 
character; but this concerns expression only, and is therefore but 
partially dependent on mere feature and primitive form. It must 
indeed be admitted, that meek and majestic features, a pure soul 
shining through the eye, a self-collected spirit seen in the general 
harmony of the countenance and in the absence of everything 
spasmodic, exert a strong moral action on the spectator ; and, in 
so far as religion consists in a quickening of the conscience under 
a sense that a superior intelligence is gazing upon us, the sight 
of a human face — even sculptured or painted — may be called a 
religious influence. Such is that of a mother to her infant. 
.But this influence is not that of beauty, though it is heightened 
by beauty. We must disentangle the two things. A countenance 
of great purity and love must have a certain sweetness of its own s 



18 



THE SOUL: 



but not dependent on feature: on the other hand, the most 
beautiful features that ever were, may be insipid and inexpressive, 
as those of many Venuses and Madonnas. Such beauty does not 
even draw admiration from the cultivated ; and when it does in 
any, the limit is soon reached ; satiety succeeds ; the matter has 
thus no place in our present discussion. But as, in the few in- 
stances in which it is our privilege to see a living face beam with 
the highest moral qualities of man, the mere sight is kindling to 
every good and holy emotion, so pictures or statues, which skil- 
fully represent such countenances, are themselves, (up to a certain 
limit not easily reached,) a moral and spiritual power. 

It is not from these that idolatrous mischiefs are to be feared ; 
no populace ever became degraded by gazing upon them. The 
many representations of the countenance of the Man of Sorrows, 
on which the eyes of the Middle Ages were fed, varying no doubt 
greatly in merit, were yet on the whole highly conducive to 
spiritual improvement. On the contrary, the stupid and debasing 
idolatry was found in connection with some staring large doll, 
tricked out in tawdry finery and called a Virgin — such as still 
infests Continental cathedrals — or with some daub of a picture, 
neither having nor supposed to have artistic excellence. Such 
things were made fetish, and the worship of them was attended 
with nearly the same influences as the worship of a stone fallen 
from Jupiter. They had not even elevating reminiscences ; for 
no one fact was imagined concerning the Virgin which tended to 
quicken the conscience.* 

But though the painted or sculptured countenance is, under 
certain circumstances, a spiritual power, yet, as being a work of 
art, it in all cases puts us beneath the artificer, and may even 
keep us down to his level. This was strikingly illustrated in Greek 
sculpture. A statue of exquisite beauty, representing some hero, or 
an Apollo, because of its beauty seemed to the Greeks a fit object of 
worship. We still have before us many of the finest performances 
of their sculptors. We know distinctly enough what an Apollo, 
what a Mercury was ; and we can accurately appreciate the influ- 
ence of such worship. None of the qualities of mind which we pecu- 
liarly call spiritual, were expressed at all. Meekness, thankfulness, 
love, contentment, compassion, humility, patience, resignation, dis- 
interestedness, purity, aspiration, devoutness ; little of ail these 

* The preposterous ascription of perpetual virginity to a married 
woman tends to promote, not true purity, but fantastic error in elder peo- 
ple, impure curiosity in younger ones. The abuse of the word chastity to 
mean celibacy is bad enough ; but this is so much worse, that I fear to 
express my feelings about it. 



SENSE OF THE INFINITE. 



19 



was felt or understood by the sculptor ; and how then couldVo com- 
municate them ? Those who adored his work could not rise to a 
higher adoration ; such is the danger besetting those who allow 
themselves to cultivate devout feeling by aid of human art. We 
must not indeed disdain that occasional stimulus ; but much less 
must we habitually have recourse to it, or make ourselves depen- 
dent on it. 

The same remark, I believe, will apply to Church architecture. 
That the canopy of heaven elevates and sobers the heart, prepar- 
ing it for devotion, if devout in itself, — few will deny. It needs 
not much susceptibility farther to confess, that a lofty cathedral, 
when suitably constructed, has an effect similar in kind to this ; 
and that, other things being equal, it is better adapted for prayer, 
(though not for preaching,) than a well-lighted room, with low 
and flat roof. It is then evidently our wisdom to use such an 
advantage, when it offers itself. But on the other hand, since 
nearly all depends on the judgment of the architect ; since many 
fail utterly, and produce only clumsy piles of masonry more or 
less ambitious, or gorgeous palaces more or less tawdry, but in 
no way appealing to the religious sense ; it will only degrade our 
worship, if we force our hearts into sympathy with their false 
conceits, and invest their influence with a quasi-religious sanction. 
It is deplorable to hear how the form of a mullion or of a capital, 
the adorning of a pulpit or communion table, to say nothing of 
other finery or fancies, is elevated into religious importance, with 
reference to churches which all the ornaments and all the archi- 
tectural lore in Europe can never invest with religious beauty ; 
which are either as thoroughly industrial, in their primitive 
conception, as any square meeting-house, or are built on some 
hereditary pattern with no moulding idea. Mediocrity — as in 
poetry, so in church-architecture — must utterly fail to elevate the 
soul ; patch the work as much as we will. Considering how rare 
access to churches of the noblest kind must always be, tenets of 
religion which dwell much on such a help to devotion are likely 
to gravitate into mere fetish superstition. 

An opposite danger is often remarked to accompany the use 
of all the fine arts as handmaids to religion ; namely, that the 
would-be worshipper is so absorbed in mere beauty, as never to 
rise into devotion. Music, Painting, Architecture, are by him 
appreciated as such ; and if criticized as such, then farewell to 
their religious influence. That the danger is real and imminent, 
the history of Italy and of modern Eome proves. What Romanist 
will claim for Eome a high place in his religious w T oiid ? and yet 
where else have these influences acted on so great a scale for so 



20 



THE SOUL : 



long a time ? On the whole therefore, we must assign an ex- 
ceedingly subordinate place in religion to that beauty which the 
hand of man produces. Its author is not divine enough ; it is 
dangerous to make much of his work. Only when it is so glori- 
ous as to rise above criticism, can it lift us higher than our com- 
mon level. 

The worship of beauty in days of chivalry was in some sense 
more elevating ; that is, oftentimes no visible thing was wor- 
shipped, but a mere ideal of the mind. When a Spanish knight 
devoted himself to promote the honour of the Virgin, or even if a 
human mistress was his idol, yet as he perhaps had never had more 
than a transient glimpse of her countenance, his own imagination 
was the chief source whence her beauties were drawn, and this 
imagination was stimulated by whatever other female beauty met 
his eye. If we measure religion by its efficacy upon the con- 
science, this knightly religion was very feeble indeed ; yet, as 
supplying a principle of action which rose out of an ideal, it was 
not without analogy to religion, and perhaps was as good as the 
worship of Apollo. 

Far better is the modern enthusiasm for romantic scenery and 
all the beauty of nature ; for that is a real infinity and constantly 
mingles itself with the awful and sublime. He who has a keen 
sensibility for this beauty, is not forthwith to be called a reli- 
gious man ; yet he has a temperament on which true religion 
may be happily superinduced, with more substance and gran- 
deur of devotion than is to be found, where only the moral senti- 
ments are in any active life. 

But here we reach a point at which it is suitable to review the 
connection of these primitive affections of the soul— Awe, Won- 
der, and Admiration — with its moral state. As regulating our 
social conduct, Morality embraces both Self and Not Self ; and 
in every possible development it recognizes both Interest and 
Duty as leading ends of action. When they do not clash, the 
virtue which pursues Interest is called Prudence ; when they do 
clash, then to pursue Interest is stigmatized as Selfishness. But 
the essential difficulty of the moralist is, that he has no com- 
mand of the impulsive forces of man, such as to help each of us 
in sacrificing Interest at the shrine of Duty : hence the mere 
moralist, in a sort of despair of generous virtue, is tempted to 
recommend self-sacrifice on selfish grounds ; and the moral system, 
which began with the profession of exalting Duty, ends with an 
idolizing of Self. Thus few men indeed are ever made more 
moral (in any but a prudential sense) by treatises on morality. 



SENSE OF THE INFINITE. 



21 



Is there then in human nature no direct antagonist to Self? 
Undoubtedly there is. The first aid against it is gained from 
Domestic affection. To gross and barbarian natures, love for 
"Woman, not uninspired by some perception of beauty or grace, 
is probably the first school of practical virtue : so too do all the 
domestic relations tend to the same result — the sacrifice of self 
to another. He who lives without any such ties, is shorn of a 
great aid towards the mortification of self ; and unless he culti- 
vates a peculiarly enlarged benevolence, falls morally below the 
average of his class and country. 

Nevertheless the domestic affections rather multiply Self than 
annihilate selfishness, and often reproduce it in a less odious but 
more intense form. They are quite insufficient to the general 
demands of morality. But another and far more implacable 
antagonist to Self is found in Enthusiasm ; which is generally 
a passionate love for some idea or abstract conception : and 
whatever form it may take, its impulse is capable of animating 
the man to any or every sacrifice of Self. But not to speak of 
separate enthusiasms, one universal enthusiasm belongs to man 
as man ; namely, that which is called out by a sense of the In- 
finite, wherein we feel Self to be swallowed up. All the generous 
side of human nature is nurtured and expanded by the con- 
templation of the Infinite. Hence is it, that a sense of the 
Sublime and Beautiful, though it be not yet Religion, supplies 
to Morals an important part of that, which it is reserved for Re- 
ligion to give in full power and divine harmony. Hence the 
glorious effect of high poetry, and of all that excites pure and 
beautiful imagination, on the youthful mind. Therefore is it, 
that to weep with Andromache, to shudder for Hector, to tremble 
at Achilles, to admire Alcestis, to rejoice with Admetus, consti- 
tute a better moral training than Paley's Philosophy or Aristotle's 
Ethics can give. Whatever throws the heart out of Self and 
swallows it up into some noble or beautiful Idea, affords to the 
moralist precisely that which he wants, but cannot get within his 
own science. He may, as it were, build an elegant Engine, but 
he has to look elsewhere for Heat and Moving Power. Enthu- 
siasm is the Life to morality ; and to excite a pure and reason- 
able Enthusiasm is, as will be seen, the great moral end of Ee- 
ligion. 

4. SENSE OF ORDER. 

But to return from this digression. — Quite differing in kind, 
though now and then coinciding with the sense of Beauty, is 



22 THE SOUL : 

that of Order. The same stars, which strike the eye of the 
savage as so beautiful, impress the diligent observer still more 
powerfully as the type of all Order, Unchangeableness, and 
thereby of Eternity. With the cultivation of the intellect and 
of scientific astronomy, immense additional weight accrues to 
this view. The recurrence of the seasons, as of day and night, 
presents itself to the mind as the most fixed and indubitable 
certainty in the universe. It suggests, ere long, that other 
departments of the world follow laws of equal fixedness, even if 
less known to us. The winds and the waves, long befcre their 
subjection to law is proved, are assumed to act really under 
similar limitations. Thus the supremacy of Order over the uni- 
verse is recognized. 

Accordingly, koct/jlos (Order) was the name for the Universe in- 
troduced among the Greeks after the birth of philosophy, and 
exceedingly modified the wild conceptions suggested by the 
then current mythology. If the powers or principles by which 
Nature is as it were animated, have personal consciousness and 
design, yet at least they have nothing approaching to caprice and 
fickleness. Be that which we call Deity, mind, be it feeling or 
be it life, at any rate unchangeableness is its most striking 
attribute. The recognition of this fact is the turning point and 
passage from barbarian, or puerile, to cultivated or manly reli- 
gion. After this step has been made, the religion cannot pos- 
sibly remain what it was. It may lose in simplicity and depth, 
or it may even gain as to both : it may recede or it may advance; 
but to stand still is impossible. 

The first great change w T hich the perception of Universal 
Order brings about is the abolition of Polytheism. Where many 
gods are a national belief, all of these are thenceforth regarded 
as separated by an immense chasm from One who is Supreme ; 
— that is, if the notion of their distinct personality is retained 
at all. He is farther discerned to stand in the same relation 
towards all nations of men and all worlds ; His principles of 
action to be the same in every age ; and now also, perhaps for 
the first time, a distinct conception of His Eternity comes in. 
Whatever of moral character be in other respects ascribed to 
Him, constancy must be ascribed ; henceforth therefore con- 
templations and imaginations concerning the Infinite put on the 
coherent form of Thought and Speculation. A man's religion, 
ceases to be a result of unreflective emotion : it has become self- 
conscious. Thus also it has fallen, more or less, under the 
control of his understanding, and he is a moral agent in regard 
to it, which he was not during his time of barbarism : and with 



SENSE OF THE INFINITE. 



23 



his more adult condition, he has assumed new powers and en- 
counters new dangers. A new element has been admitted, 
which will either dilute and as it were dissolve all the rest, or by 
blending with them happily will give to the religion definiteness 
of form, consistency, and notions which can abide the criticism 
of acute incredulity. As before, we stop to consider the de- 
graded types incident to this stage of development. 

Whatever is habitual to us, is ill adapted to rouse attention or 
excite Wonder. No one wonders that a rock remains at rest ; 
and though, as long as we know no other cause of motion than 
muscular force, the movement of the sun and stars does seem 
wonderful, yet their regularity certainly abates largely from the 
feeling. After it has appeared that a magnet will cause steel- 
filings to move towards it \ much more, after we are convinced 
that stones fall to the ground, and planets move round the sun, 
for the same reason as steel- filings are drawn to the magnet, the 
mind is forced to confess that Motion has nothing in it more 
wonderful than Rest. Everything appears either to remain as it 
is or to change, by a Law, This suggests the theory, that Mind 
is not in the universe at large, since it is not wanted to account 
for Motion. If in this stage of thought a man have adopted a 
moral hypothesis which denies that in the human mind any ori- 
ginating Will exists, and which resolves Will into other forces of 
which we are not conscious ; then such a man naturally becomes 
an Atheist ; for, discerning no first principle of movement even 
within himself, he of course needs none out of himself. If in 
his own actions he see no marks of (what others call) Will, why 
should he see them in the actions of Nature ? 

Yet Error cannot be self-coherent. The Atheist of this class 
discerns Law and Necessity in his actions, and does not there- 
fore deny that he has a Mind himself : why then should Law and 
Necessity in the universe imply that there is not a Mind there 
also ? Grant that the human mind has no Will ; suppose that 
the divine mind, is herein similar : still, that is no reason for 
denying that there is mind in the universe, in the only sense in 
which he has experience of mind. If he admits this, he will really 
become a Theist. But it would be truly absurd, to demand as 
an indispensable mark of a Divine Mind, the very Freedom, 
which, at the same time, he pronounces to be absent from the 
human and impossible for any mind . 

When Atheism depends on the Moral* error of believing that 

* I do not know how to avoid calling this a moral error ; but I 
must carefully guard against seeming to overlook that it may be still a 



THE SOUL : 



man's Will is never self-moving, it is to the Moralist that we 
must appeal for correction. But if the atheistic tendency arise 
solely from the impression (produced ly the uniformity of Law) 
that there is no Will active in the universe, this objection 
appears to be suitably met by the argument for Design, to which 
I next proceed. 

5. SENSE OF DESIGN. 

In barbarian religion the idea of a personality in the Powers 
of Nature slips in and out ; establishes itself generally in the 
popular creed of more advanced nations with considerable con- 
stancy, but does not know how to justify itself on reasonable 
grounds : and very often, at the first touch of philosophy, 
crumbles into ashes, leaving only Atheism or Pantheism. The 
question now arises — Is this ascription of Personality to the 
universal Power so gratuitous as those philosophers thought ? 
Does the universe exhibit to us much Order indeed, but no 
marks of Mind ? 

An imperfect moral will is uncertain and disorderly : Law is 
but doubtfully manifest in it. But in proportion as its highest 
state is attained, uncertainty disappears, and Order or Law is 
developed. Surely then there is no natural repugnance between 
Order and Mind, nor any plausibility in the argument, which 
endeavours to explode the idea of Mind by giving prominence 
to that of Law. 

Here, if anywhere, we must guard against the fallacy, which 
pretends that a clue to truth is worthless, if it have not the form 
of cogent Argument. We discern Design in the world : Fit- 
nesses are the clue by which we track it out; yet they un- 
doubtedly do not always, and much less in every detail, indicate 
Design. Fruit is palatable and wholesome to man : a suitability 
might strike me, between an orange or pine-apple and my 
appetite ; but it would not be sound forthwith to infer that this 
particular fruit had been designed for me as a particular person 
— either by man or by God. Farther examination often shows 
antagonist fitnesses : two mouths want the same loaf, and it can- 
merely speculative error, which ought not to separate our hearts from 
any man. If we see another to love goodness and shudder at evil, he is 
to be loved, although he may hold a theory, which we think logically 
tends to annihilate exertion for the good and against the evil. On the 
other hand, many a bad-hearted man is theoretically orthodox on these 
points. 



SENSE OF THE INFINITE. 



25 



not have been intended for both. The antagonisms are often of 
a less obvious kind, yet serve equally well to correct the first 
rash conclusion. So again, fantastical minds may carry up the 
detail of human arts into the divine purposes ; as the well-known 
engineer, who before a Parliamentary Committee expressed his 
opinion, that " large rivers were intended to feed navigable 
canals." It must be admitted, that the argument from Fitness 
to Design may be ill applied : but the question arises — Can it 
never be trusted ? 

A lung bears a certain relation to the air, a gill to the water, 
the eye to light, the mind to truth, human hearts to one an- 
other ; is it gratuitous and puerile to say, that these relations 
imply design ? There is no undue specification here, no anta- 
gonist argument, no intrusion of human artifice : we take the 
things fresh from nature. In saying that lungs were intended to 
breathe, and eyes to see, we imply an argument from Fitness to 
Design, which carries conviction to the overwhelming majority 
of cultivated as well as uncultivated minds. Yet, in calling it an 
argument, we may seem to appeal to the logical faculty ; and 
this would be an error. No syllogism is pretended, that proves 
a lung to have been made to breathe ; but we see it by what 
some call Common Sense, and some Intuition. If such a fact 
stood alone in the universe, and no other existences spoke of 
Design, it would probably remain a mere enigma to us ; but 
when the whole human world is pervaded by similar instances, 
not to see a Universal Mind in nature appears to indicate so 
hopeless a deficiency in the Religious Faculty, as to preclude 
farther discussion. Just as, if any one had no sense of Beauty 
in anything, we should not imagine that we could impart it by 
argument, so neither here. Possibly some day, by a new deve- 
lopement of his character or by the contagion of sympathy, he 
may acquire Religious Insight ; but for the present, we lament 
that he has it not, and hereby is cut off from the profoundest 
influences of humanity. 

I must nevertheless here add my belief, that in modern days 
some have been carried into a theory of Atheism, not from any 
want of religious susceptibility, but just as others into Roman- 
ism ; from an inability to disentangle sophistical argument, and 
from a desire to be honest in sacrificing their instinctive convic- 
tions to their technically erroneous reasoning. This is probably 
a strictly correct account of the process by which Necessarians 
are made. And as professed Necessarians are ordinarily uncon- 
scious believers in Free Will, so those professors of Atheism, who 
retain pure moral sympathies, do perhaps, under other names, 

c 



2*3 



THE soul: 



such as Veneration of the Infinite and of Eternal Law, nourish 
within themselves some nucleus of religion. On no account let 
us exaggerate the real difference between them and us ; though 
real it is and must be, if they forbid themselves to love and 
trust in a Superior Intelligence. 

But to return to the marks of Design, j 

No stress whatever needs here to be laid upon minute anatomy, 
as for instance, of the eye : it signifies not, whether we do or do 
not understand its optical structure as a matter of science. If it 
had no optical structure at all, if it differed in no respect (that 
we could discover) from a piece of marble, except that it sees, 
this would not destroy our conviction* that it is meant to see. 
Of the physical structure of mind, no one pretends to know any- 
thing ; but this does not inspire doubt whether the mind was 
meant to discern truth. 

Why should any philosopher resist this judgment ? One thing 
might justify him ; namely, if there were strong a 'priori reasons 
for disbelieving that Mind exists anywhere except in man. But 
the case is just the reverse. That puny beings who are but of 
yesterday, and presently disappear, should alone possess that 
which of all things is highest and most wonderful, is a priori ex- 
ceedingly implausible. As Socrates and Cicero have pointedly 
asked : " Whence have we picked it up?" Its source is not in 
ourselves : there must surely be a source beyond us. Thus the 
tables are turned : we must prima facie expect to find Mind in 
the Universe, acting on some stupendous scale, and of course 
imperfectly understood by us. Consequently, such Fitnesses as 
meet our view on all sides bring a reasonable conviction that 
Design lies beneath them. To confess this, is to confess the 
doctrine of an intelligent Creator, although we pretend not to 
understand anything concerning the mode, stages, or time of 
Creation. Adding now the conclusions drawn from the Order of 
the universe, we have testimony, adapted to the cultivated judg- 
ment, that there is a Boundless, Eternal, Unchangeable, Design- 
ing Mind, not without whom this system of things coheres : and 
this Mind we call God. 

It is however right here to enter a protest against being 
thought to have any accurate and perfect knowledge of that In- 
finite Mind. Our knowledge is essentially crude and only ap- 
proximate; and to affect the rigid form of human science is mere 
delusion. We attribute to God those properties of mind with 

* See m Charles Hennell's Christian Theism, p. 34, &c., a luminous 
statement of the argument from mechanism. 



SENSE OF THE INFINITE. 



27 



which we are acquainted, — Will, Design 5 Forethought, and 
others ; but it is unreasonable to imagine that we can at all more 
deeply sound His mind, than a dog that of his master. Hence 
Religious Knowledge, from the nature of the case, is essentially 
popular ; and if the scientific mind has any advantage over the 
unscientific in prosecuting it, the advantage is not in the direct 
perceptive powers of the soul and in any greater fulness of know- 
ledge, but, negatively, in avoiding vulgar prejudices derived from 
false lights. Intellectual cultivation, in itself, is here purely cri- 
tical and only destructive of error : yet as such, of very high im- 
portance. If this essential imperfection in our knowledge of 
God be admitted, an important corollary follows : namely, that 
no long deductions, following logical (that is to say, verbal) pro- 
cesses, can be trusted in Theology. Such deductions imply full 
accuracy in the verbal premisses. Inference may guide our 
thoughts to new beliefs ; but we need to discern the results di- 
rectly, and not merely to depend on our syllogisms, if we are to 
have the full confidence of practical truth. What mathematician 
will trust to a refined and lengthy process of argument, depend- 
ing on empirical formulas ? In Hydraulics and Pneumatics, 
where the first principles are only approximately known, it is re- 
quisite to keep close to experiment, and verify every speculative 
inference by practical trial. A system of Theology, constructed 
like a treatise on Mechanics, by fine-drawn reasonings from a 
few primitive axioms or experimental laws, is likely to be nothing 
but a Sham Science. 

Injustice, I think, is done to the train of thought which sug- 
gests Design, when it is represented as a search after Causes, 
until we come to a First Cause, and there stop. As an argu- 
ment, this, I confess, in itself brings me no satisfaction. It is 
not pretended that we understand the First Cause any more than 
the original phenomena : when we know not the character of His 
agency, how have we accounted for anything ? or how have we 
even simplified the problem? A God uncaused and existing 
from eternity, is to the full as incomprehensible as a world un- 
caused and existing from eternity. We must not reject the latter 
theory, merely as incomprehensible ; for so is every other possi- 
ble theory. To believe in a divine Architect, because I cannot 
otherwise understand by what train of causation an Eye could 
have been made, is one thing ; (does the Theist any the more 
understand ?) but to believe in a Designer, because I see the Eye 
to be suited to Light, is another thing. The latter argument 
indeed does not in itself carry us up to a First Cause ; its whole 
scope is to point out intellect external to man and higher than 

c 2 



28 



THE SOUL: 



his, which suffices to justify the popular ascription of mind and 
personality to the power which is in Nature. 

To carry out extravagantly, and as it were caricature, the doc- 
trine of Design, is a rare perversity. There are however those, 
who think not only to honour God, but to be peculiarly logical 
and scientific, by teaching that He has designed everything that 
happens ; regardless whether any Fitnesses exist to indicate De- 
sign. Every pebble washed up by the sea, every bone imbedded 
in the mud, was definitely intended by Him to lie where it lies, — 
Now if those who so believe mean merely to say, that the so- 
called powers of nature are actings of the divine will, the reply 
is, that this is a juggle of words ; for they manifestly do not 
reveal His moral will. To become an agent of cruelty in tor- 
menting a martyr, would be a crime : yet if nothing but the 
immediate will of God, exerted as directly as by the torturer, 
makes the scourge to cut and the flesh to feel, then God also is 
an accomplice in the crime. This conclusion is of course inad- 
missible. It is evaded by remarking, — what is a certain fact, — 
that He acts by general laws : which means, that He sees it to 
be more important to adhere to processes which admit of mecha- 
nical, chemical and (in short) physical definition, than to guide 
His proceedings by the moral right and wrong of special cases. 
No other solution has ever been suggested ; and this is adequate 
and convincing. — But what does this imply? Why, that God's 
moral thoughts can no more be detected in the detailed actions 
of material objects, than the affections of a watchmaker by in- 
specting a watch : — that when the flesh of a martyr is agonized 
by the flames, God gives the fire power to burn him, not because 
He wishes it on that particular occasion to burn, but because it is 
better to adhere to a fixed system, so that the element which 
burns at one time should burn also at another. Thus the quali- 
ties of matter are on the whole, no doubt, agreeable to the divine 
will, and may be speciously called the actings of that will ; but 
the phrase is very delusive ; since the sole use of it is to propa- 
gate a notion which is directly contrary to obvious fact. For in 
material nature Law alone rules, and moral considerations are> as 
far as we know, uniformly overborne by mechanical ones. Since 
then the details of mechanical agencies evidently denote no moral 
Will, it is a fallacy to call them Will at all. If an unmoral Will 
were all that we attributed to God, He would be a mere me- 
chanist, coming into no contact with our hearts and souls ; and 
we might as well be Atheists, as far as moral and spiritual things 
are concerned. — On the other hand, if this doctrine of Design be 
carried unshrinkingly into the actings of the human soul, (which 



SENSE OF THE INFINITE. 



29 



is the worst form of Pantheism,) it becomes a detestable moral 
error, in comparison to which simple Atheism is a light mistake. 
Every sin of every wicked man is converted into a direct act of 
deity ; an idea than which nothing can be more blasphemous. 

Yet the persons who teach this doctrine, if accepted not a3 
logicians, but as men labouring with sentiment which they know 
not how otherwise to express, may be found even to kindle in us 
a high devotion. Who can read the Pantheism of the Orphic 
Hymns or of Virgil, and not be moved by them ? It is when the 
Pantheism which would swallow up all mind and action in the 
divine, is proposed as an accurate and logical system, that we are 
justified in intense repugnance to it, as furnishing excuses for 
Sin. 

I feel some timidity in adverting to another form of Pantheism, 
lest I should misrepresent what is so difficult in my own mind to 
grasp. I believe that some are called Pantheists, merely because 
they are hyperphilosophic Theists.* They have a morbid fear of 
attributing human qualities to God, lest they should degrade 
him : thus they shun to ascribe to him, not only " body, parts, 
and passions," but affections, judgments, designs, mind ; and so 
his personality vanishes. Yet in fact they do ascribe to him 
£w<m-affections, quasi-mind, and ^mw'-personality ; so that their 
practical creed vacillates, from Atheism to Theism by the infinite 
vagueness of the quasi : and perhaps, like many religionists, they 
have two mutually refuting creeds, which may be used as the 
case requires. Such men may themselves be fundamentally 
religious, though their doctrine seduce others into irreligion. — 
Concerning the Divine Nature, we know that our metaphorical 
language must be inaccurate ; but it is the best we have got : to 
refuse to speak of God as loving and planning, as grieving and 
sympathizing, without the protest of a quasi, will not tend to 
clearer intellectual views, (for what can be darker?) but will 
muddy the springs of affection. Metaphorical language in this 
whole subject is that which the soul dictates, and therefore must 
surely express onr nearest approximation to truth, if the soul be 
the eye by which alone we see God. Jealously to resist meta- 
phor, does not testify to depth of insight. 

As to that Pantheism which deliberately and coldly merges all 
human Will and action in the Divine, — -which on moral grounds r 
is so shocking, — it is at the same time so obviously self-destruc- 

* I now find that there are persons who call themselves Pantheists, 
merely because they are Theists who have no belief concerning a finite era 
of Creation, but nevertheless firmly hold the intelligent Personality of the 
ever-acting and all-pervading Spirit. (Second Edition.) 



30 



THE SOUL • 



tive even as a logical system, that it has always been wonderful 
to me how it can claim intellectual respect. Eor nothing but a 
consciousness of active originating Will in ourselves suggests or 
can justify the idea of a mighty Will pervading Nature; and to 
merge the former in the latter, is to sacrifice the Premiss to the 
glory of the Conclusion. 

6. SENSE OF GOODNESS. 

As soon as the intellectual belief of One Personal God has 
been clearly attained, the mind most rapidly superadds the idea 
of his Goodness, at least from the negative side. He is too great 
to be moved by petty passions ; he cannot have pleasure in our 
misery : the only doubt is, whether he thinks of us individually 
at all : for allowing his ability, some remain unconvinced of his 
willingness. 

The great struggle of mere intellectual philosophers has always 
been on this side. In the abstract they admit God's goodness, 
nay, his moral perfection ; but doubt whether it is a part of his 
perfection to pay any attention to us ; and, certainly, as far as 
external things are concerned, their reasonings appear unanswer- 
able : no miracles are wrought for our convenience or welfare, 
What answer there is in regard to spiritual things, will afterwards 
be treated. Meanwhile, the a priori conviction of God's good- 
ness is unquestioned ; and is indeed so satisfactory, as scarcely to 
need with a cultivated mind such confirmations as the vulgar 
dwell upon : — our daily supplies of things needful and comfort- 
able ; the kind provision made for mankind at large ; the adapta- 
tion of the night for rest, the day for action; the gift of inferior 
animals suited to become our servants, aid, or friends. Perhaps 
these arguments are in a certain stage of culture necessary, while 
the mind is unprepared either to see that they are defective or 
to understand a higher view ; afterwards, far more conviction is 
attained from considering that all the possible peifectness of mans 
spirit must be a mere faint shadow of the divine perfection. To 
conceive of God at all, as an intelligent existence, and not regard 
Him as morally more perfect than man, is obviously absurd. Nor 
only so ; but to volunteer limiting any of His attributes is equally 
absurd. Until the contrary be proved, we unhesitatingly attri- 
bute to Him boundlessness in every kind of which we can con- 
ceive. But on account of the last limitation, the Perfections of 
God are justly called a projected image of our own highest con- 
ceptions. 

Philosophers however of old times dreaded to impute affections 



SENSE OF THE INFINITE. 



31 



to God, not knowing how to distinguish them from emotions ; both 
indeed being merged by the Greeks under the single term naBr). 
Perhaps they rightly maintain that the two words denote difference 
of degree only, and thus may force us to admit that affections 
are attributed by us to the divinity, only metaphorically. Still 
as the metaphor is our nearest approach to truth, and (as before 
said) we gain nothing by inserting a quasi, it is best to abide by 
the popular phraseology. Else to what do we come ? Piret, 
denying emotion to Him, we must deny affection, because that is 
nothing but a gentle emotion : next we must deny desire. But 
if he wishes for nothing, He aims at nothing, He designs 
nothing : thus we come into collision with what appears to the 
mind as fact — that there are marks of Design in the universe. 
Inverting then the argument, Design leads legitimately back to 
Desire, and in some sense to affection ; and we call him Benign, 
for desiring the welfare of his creatures. To endeavour to resolve 
God into intellect without affection, is atheism under a new 
name ; for mere intellect is not an active principle. If therefore 
the argument from Design leads to any God at all, it leads to a 
Good God, not too great to take interest in his creatures' welfare 
and perfection. 

A difficulty is nevertheless encountered from the fact of human 
suffering ; — suffering of the good and of the innocent, — of in- 
nocent brutes as well as men. This wide-spread reality has a 
thousand times distressed the purest hearts ; and it would be vain 
to try to blink at it. But one reason why it has weighed so 
heavily on many, is, — that they had unduly rested the proof of 
the divine goodness on an opposite fact, viz. on what are called 
Providential Mercies. When such mercies fail, when on the con- 
trary scourges and torment befal the righteous, an anxious em- 
barrassment of mind follows. Especially if the received religion 
have taught that external prosperity is a mark of the divine favour, 
misfortunes falling on good men will bring a ten-fold sting. But 
that side of the difficulty falls away, when we find the proofs of 
the divine goodness, not in events and circumstances, but in 
primitive and essential arrangements, and in the human mind 
itself, as an imperfect type of the divine. 

It is true, that even in the primitive structure of things, we 
discover much which at first shocks us. Physical pain in many 
aspects appears not as an accident and an abuse, but as if defi- 
nitely desigued. Pierce beasts are observed to be armed for in- 
flicting misery, and the instincts of one creature are often directed 
to destroy the quiet and comfort of another, which may seem not 
to have earned hostility, On this subject whole volumes might 



32 



THE SOUL: 



be written, as ample arguments have been. Here it may be 
sufficient to remark, that the difficulty turns on the Epicurean 
assumption, that Physical Ease and Comfort is the most valuable 
thing in the universe ; but that is not true, even with brutes. 
There is a certain perfection in the nature of each, consisting in 
the full development of all their powers,-to which the existing 
Order manifestly tends ; and any one who shall speculatively re- 
construct the organized world and coherently follow out his own 
scheme, will probably end in discerning, that the present ar- 
rangements of God are better than man could have devised. As 
for susceptibility to Pain, it is obviously essential to every part 
of corporeal life, and to discuss the question of degree is beyond 
us. On the other hand, Human capacity for Sorrow is equally 
necessary to our whole moral nature, and Sorrow itself is a most 
essential process for the perfecting of the soul. Not to have 
discerned the relation of Sorrow to Virtue is perhaps the most 
striking defect pervading all the Greek moral philosophy. 

More permanent disturbance of mind is caused to good men 
who have no extensive view of human nature, nor habit of mental 
analysis, from the prevailing wickedness of mankind. It avails 
not here to say that human goodness is only a relative idea, and 
that however much better men were, we should still think them 
bad, since our standard would have risen. In a mere moral 
view indeed such a reply suffices ; for all tribes of men have 
some morality. Those who are ferocious towards foreigners, are 
often tender-hearted towards their own people ; and the difference 
of savage from civilized virtue is one of degree. But religiously 
the case is otherwise ; for there is a chasm between loving God 
and not loving him, serving him and not serving him. We can easily 
suppose such an improvement in human nature, that though all 
would of course be still imperfect, yet none should be irreligious: 
and men will ask, Why does a good God leave so large a part of 
mankind in irreligion ? To many, this is an exceedingly severe 
trial of faith, because irreligion has been invested with eternal 
consequences, which binds the understanding in a net absolutely 
inextricable. But let the Gordian knot be cut ; let it be dis- 
cerned that the infinite cannot be the meed of the finite ; — then, 
while we lament the actual state of the world, we shall not find 
it hard to understand that it has necessarily resulted from the 
independence of the human Will ; which must be left free, and 
capable of resisting the Divine Will; otherwise we should not be 
men, but brutes or machines. Assuming then that evil is finite, 
transitory, and only an essential condition towards the attain- 
ment of higher and permanent good, we find nothing in human 



SENSE OF THE INFINITE. 



33 



wickedness, however intense, and whatever misery it causes, to 
inspire rational doubt of the divine Goodness. 

That there is abroad among us an unsound view of supreme 
Goodness, (or benevolence, as it is called,) cannot, I think, be 
denied. It is akin to that spurious humanity, which so shudders 
at putting* a criminal to death, as to prefer keeping him alive 
even where there is no human hope of his being recovered 
to virtue, but every probability of his incurring more and 
more desperate hardness. The benevolent man is supposed 
to shrink from inflicting bodily pain on any one, whether for his 
own good, or as a necessary process for defending others : and 
where this morbid notion prevails, we must expect people to be 
much shocked at the broad facts of the Natural History of 
animals, to say nothing of Man himself. But against such 
errors those will never be able successfully to contend, who run 
into the opposite and hideous extreme, of representing God as 
an everlasting torturer ; and would tell us that this only shows 
His strength of mind. Pain and Suffering undoubtedly are 
among God's most efficacious means for perfecting all his 
creatures, and, not least, man ; but they must needs be with Him 
means, not ends, if we are to attribute to Him in any sense that 
which we are able to recognise as Goodness ; and consequently, 
they must be in His plans either partial and subordinate, or 
finite and transitory. All Theology which contradicts this, 
darkens and distorts the face of God to us. 

7. SENSE OF WISDOM. 

As long as we conceive the Deity to possess a crude omni- 
potence, capable of effecting everything instantaneously by his 
mere will or fiat, there is no room for attributing Wisdom to him 
in regard to processes and means. To absolute omnipotence 
there are no difficulties, no antagonist powers ; and it is un- 
certain whether the idea of Wisdom could then be suggested, at 
least as different from Goodness. We see Goodness in the choice 
of the ends, Wisdom principally and perhaps solely in the direc- 
tion of the means. The early philosophers of the East appear to 
have discerned, that it is impossible to hold a belief of the divine 
goodness, together with this absolute omnipotence : human sin 
and misery are an insuperable difficulty. They however looked 
for the antagonist, which limits the divine omnipotence, in 
matter ; attributing to it inherent perversity, of which he made 
the best, though the best was bad. At this we may smile : yet 
it perhaps was only expressing in their own dialect a thought 

c 5 



THE SOUL : 



fundamentally the same as our own, at least as far as religion k 
concerned. We now distinctly understand that the human 
Will is the antagonist ; and how formidable a one, daily expe- 
rience shows. The course of History however more and more 
witnesses to us of the divine Wisdom, which provides for the 
final triumph of Truth and Eight. 

This is an ocean too deep to be sounded. We advance farther 
into it than our forefathers ; our distant posterity may advance 
beyond us ; but most eminently do we need wisdom ourselves, 
if we are to judge of Divine wisdom. We do nevertheless see, 
that the instincts of men, leading them to form family connec- 
tions, to unite into States, to engage in active industry, to con- 
quer foreigners, to carry on commerce, to indulge in luxury, to 
enjoy poetry, to study science, — mixed, as they all are, with 
every sort of imperfection, polluted with sin and crime or sullied 
with vanity and folly ; — still, in the long run, advance nations 
towards a higher and higher level. Some nations sink, while 
others rise ; but the lower and the higher levels are both gene- 
rally ascending. Such, at least in my apprehension, is the testi 
mony of History rightly interpreted. 

Yet our belief in the Wisdom of God, as in his Goodness, is 
assuredly a matter of a prion discernment, by no means depend- 
ing on learned arguments. We cannot conceive of such a Being, 
and perceive that there are difficulties to he overcome, against which 
mere Omnipotence cannot be invoked, — and not attribute to him 
Wisdom, that shall ultimately overcome those difficulties. And 
on this turns what is called the Divine Government of the world, 
or, the course of Providence. Incipient speculation vainly endea- 
voured to trace in detail the marks of the divine government 
in the history of short periods and in special events. The 
error of this consists in overlooking the nature of the combat ; 
namely, that the human mind, which is to be conquered by the 
divine, must nevertheless preserve its liberty, and be freely con- 
quered. This so nearly approaches a contradiction, that it may 
well be a hard and lingering struggle ; and in the course of it, 
the imperfect wili of man has its own way against that of God so 
frequently, that to appeal to separate events in proof of the 
divine government can only mislead, Abandoning however this, 
Faith fails back on the a priori certainty that He whose Designs 
are visible in the structure and adaptation of the things of this 
world, knew what he was designing, and would not have done 
anything, except for ultimate good results. To imagine that 
the Creator was under constraint to create the world, is in fact to 
deny the doctrine of a personal designer and to run back into 



SENSE OF THE INFINITE. 



35 



that of a blind Fate : and as we must suppose him to have 
acted not only freely but with a foresight what it was that he 
was doing, we cannot believe in a designing mind at all with- 
out inevitably implicating it with that of Divine Providence. 

An exaggerated and corrupt view of the divine wisdom is 
found in that spurious optimism, which extends the doctrine 
that "Whatever is, is best," to those details in which human 
folly and wickedness are peculiarly manifest. Allowance how- 
ever must be made for incautiousness of language or love of 
paradoxical statement. Some will say that a deed of cruelty 
was "for the best," not meaning to include the perpetrator 
among those benefited. And not only so, but our very sins are 
often overruled to ourselves as well as to others. But to say 
that we " could not have done better than sin," is at once self- 
contradictory and morally corrupting : it was not sin, if we 
could not have done better. 

8. REVERENCE* 

The affections of Awe, Wonder, Admiration, with which 
religion began, did not denote any necessary or fixed belief in a 
personal Deity, nor any activity of mind in him who experienced 
them. The perceptions of Order, Design, Goodness and Wisdom, 
do bring in a personal Deity, but they belong to the intellect 
more than to the soul : and all this is rather preparation for 
religion, than religion itself. But after that preparation, the 
legitimate result is the rise of a totally new affection, the ground 
of which is Reverence towards the mighty inscrutable Being 
whom we have discerned in the Universe. Here the Soul once 
more begins to be affected, but no longer passively : it is taking 
its first step into self-conscious moral action : thus Reverence is 
the beginning of true religion. He who reverences God is a 
religious man, and whatever his other ignorances or defects, is 
an accepted worshipper. 

It is hard to judge how far it is possible in an unenlightened 
intellect for Reverence to be directed towards the Deity without 
a consciousness that His eye is simultaneously upon us. One 
may imagine a barbarian mind to adore God, just as we might 
admire a mighty prince whom we saw pass by, though we knew 
not that he saw us. But undoubtedly this is impossible to a 
moderately cultivated mind ; and the most decisive moral effects 
produced by the devotional posture of the soul depend on con- 
sciousness that it has met the eye of God. 

Nevertheless, it is not to be imagined that Reyerence rises at 



36 



THE SOUL: 



once into high intelligent worship, and that Spirituality is forth- 
with generated. Ages rolled by in the history of our race with- 
out such a disentanglement of truth from error as to allow of this, 
and many years pass with most of us individually. The first 
great revolution wrought in religion, may be traced back even to 
Polytheistic times, as with iEschylus and Herodotus, when the 
union commences between it and morality ; that is, when it is 
discerned that the great Power or Powers who preside over 
Nature must needs possess Moral qualities similar to our own, 
though every-way more perfect ; after this, every elevation of the 
standard of human morals leads also to a more elevated concep- 
tion of God's moral nature. This it is first which raises what 
was Paganism into rational Religion, and justifies us in using the 
word Reverence-, nevertheless, for a longtime (perhaps) the worship- 
per has still no vivid idea that morality concerns itself with the 
heart ; consequently, he does not conceive of God as concerning 
himself with the human heart, and God abides as it were wholly 
outside of his nature. A man who commits murder, who gives 
false judgment for bribes, perjures himself, seduces his neigh- 
bour's wife, defrauds his ward, or violates the rights of friendship 
and hospitality — is believed to incur the anger of God: but 
those whose ordinary moral conduct is correct have no conscious- 
ness of guilt, and are able to yield to Him decorous and sincere 
reverence on every stated occasion. 

Where the Will is strong, and Passions or Temptation mode- 
rate ; where the person is engaged in outward action, and little 
disposed to self-inspection ; a man is satisfied with his own attain- 
ments, and feels no inward pressure after a higher and higher 
perfection. This is often reproved as Self-righteousness by 
spiritual people ; unduly, I think ; for the mind of the worshipper 
is not engaged in a reflex act of self-admiration. Moreover, in 
that stage of low development of the soul, a certain self-compla- 
cency is perhaps undistinguishable from that which we call a Good 
Conscience : but this subject is important enough to deserve after- 
wards a fuller discussion. Many estimable people spend the best 
part of their lives in this stage, without any growth of soul, per- 
haps exemplary in social morals, and every way amiable, with the 
intellectual wish to be truly religious, but with no hungering and 
thirsting after righteousness. They so far rise above the descrip- 
tion just given, as to feel that to plan a sin is itself a sin ; but 
God is with them an Avenger, not a spiritual Eewarder : they 
reverence Him indeed, but do not at all aspire to love Him. 
Natural Affection and other good feelings move them more than 
either the pure Conscience or the Soul ; spiritually they are in a 



SENSE OF THE INFINITE. 



37 



puerile stage ; their religious faculties are uncorrupted and imma- 
ture : and, on the whole, happy is the country (if there be one in 
the whole world so favoured) which has the great mass of its 
population in this state. Religion is to them, according to its old- 
fashioned etymology, a bond or band ; recognized indeed by their 
conscience, and in so far internal ; yet not a living inward force. 
It rather restrains externally, than animates them : still, when we 
see what human nature is and has been, we must count this a 
great step forward. Of this respectable and worthy class, (if we 
may be allowed to borrow a harsh metaphor from a poetical book,* 
which is habitually explained as allegorical,) we may say : " We 
have a little sister, and she has no breasts." To drive away from 
our sympathies by haughty airs of superiority those who are only 
in an earlier stage of advancement than ourselves, is so harsh and 
so unwise, as to be a spot of Pharisaism upon us. 

With the improvement of moral doctrine, Reverential worship 
will become more elevated; or conversely, improved religious 
doctrine may elevate morality. In the stage of which we treat, 
neither of the two has living power, and no growth can be 
counted on : both wait upon external influences, and morality 
chiefly depends on the political institutions and social circum- 
stances. Yet the link between the Conscience and the Soul is 
already formed, and the two are now likely to thrive or to pine 
together. 

The commonest degraded form of Reverence is that of substi- 
tuting artificial mysteries for the real mystery ; which is, God in 
God's own direct works : a perversion, which leads the wor- 
shipper to venerate something different from, and of course lower 
than, the highest ideal of the Good and Great which his soul is 
capable of forming : and this " something" is generally in modern 
days, God in human works. Such a corruption is evidently an 
inward and spiritual Idolatry ; and must dwarf the soul, giving to 
it a rigid and unnatural form, in which it may indeed live, but 
can make no thriving growth. To expand the separate branches 
of this case, would be to enter into a universal crusade against 
erroneous religions in detail ; but by way of preface to some ad- 
missible remarks, it will be useful to consider w T hat is the essence 
of Idolatry, in the bad sense which the word ought always to bear. 

Infinity, or the Absence of Bounds, is an idea wholly relative 
to the mind which contemplates it. That of which I believe that 
I cannot know the bounds, is practically boundless to me ;f and 

* Song of Solomon, viii. 8. 

f Infinity or Boundlessness is, I presume, a negative idea, as much 



88 



THE SOUL : 



if there were a being revealed to my senses, so godlike in all his 
attributes, that in no direction could I discover infirmity or ex- 
pect ever to discover it, he might become the object of devout 
reverence, as exalted and as pure as that which I am capable of 
rendering to an invisible and eternal God. 

On this account, a child even of an agerat which the recog- 
nition of a God is impossible, is by no means necessarily in the 
state of an Atheist. At least the child of a tender and wise 
parent exercises towards that parent in some degree the principal 
actions of the religious soul ; — reverence, love, trust, hope, belief. 
Not only is this the genuine preparation for true devotion 
towards God, but as it is the only possible devotion of which 
the child is capable, so it is the highest and best state. More- 
over, we are thus led to a right view of Idolatry. Such a child, 
at first sight, might seem to be an Idolater; inasmuch as he 
worships for a god one who is not God : but this is an error, 
To worship as perfect and infinite one whom we know to be im- 
perfect and finite, this is Idolatry, and (in any bad sense) this 
alone. Evidently it is degrading and pernicious to lavish acts 
of devotion on one whom we perceive not to deserve them ; for 
it is an unnatural, uncalled-for self-abasement, tending to lower 
our ideas of goodness or greatness. Thus, to adore even with 
very qualified reverence a Mercury or a Bacchus, in whom no 
sort of moral excellence was believed to reside, is fitly stig- 
matised as Idolatry. But if any simple Roman, forming in his 
mind a certain not very high moral image of " Jupiter Best 
and Greatest," yet imputed to him no conduct or tempers, in 
which he himself discerned imperfection ; then, we might in- 
deed lament his dimness of sight, we might think him in a 
puerile condition, but (remaining in this respect as he is) it 
would be better for him to worship than not ; just as the child 
is better for reverencing the human parent, and rendering to 
him whatever of adoration is within his compass. The old Jew 
must generally have conceived of Jehovah as a respecter of 
persons and of nations, and as in many ways partial, capricious, 
arbitrary and even fierce ; in so far, the Jew misjudged, and his 
misjudgment was not harmless ; yet this, being unknown to him, 

as any can be ; yet no one need therefore shrink to call God Infinite, or 
fancy that he gains any thing by substituting the word Absolute. Infinity, 
in the abstract, is only an attribute of those things which to us are 
infinite, as the Ocean, the Heaven, or God; and as it 'plainly does not 
exhaust our whole conception of any of these things, I cannot imagine how 
any one fears that he shall admit God to be a negation if he hold that 
God is Infinite, and that Infinity is a negation. 



SENSE OF THE INFINITE. 



39 



was no reason to him for not worshipping. Nor yet to us, as 
bystanders, can it be a reason for deprecating his worship. For 
a man can but adore his own highest Ideal ; to forbid this is to 
forbid all religion to him. If therefore Idolatry is to mean any- 
thing wrong and bad, the word must be reserved for the cases in 
which a man degrades his Ideal by worshipping something that 
falls short of it. As long as this is not done, two worshippers 
may indeed differ widely from one another in the depth or truth 
of their views concerning the Best and Highest, as Jacob dif- 
fered from Paul ; in which case he who has the purer insight will 
have the holier and nobler religion ; yet the religion of each will 
be the only right thing for each, and the more ignorant of the 
two is Superstitious perhaps, but not Idolatrous. Indeed every 
one of us who is religious at all, is superstitious, exactly in the 
proportion in which error is implicated in his religion ; and 
wholly to escape this is not given to man. 

But a man may lower his Ideal, and become a degraded 
Idolater, in other ways besides that of old Polytheism. It mat- 
ters not whether I worship Mercury, while my conscience tells 
me that there are things in him that do not deserve honour ; or 
whether I force my heart to submit in devout reverence to the 
whole of an ecclesiastical system, against parts of which my con- 
science would protest. The same plea of Authority, which says 
to the superstitious Christian, "It is your duty to suppress the 
misgivings of conscience, because we have External and Osten- 
sible claims on your faith, 55 is equally available on the side of 
the Pagan Priest, for the worship of Ganesa or of Bacchus. 
The same boldness of simple and true faith, by which the born 
votary of Paganism breaks away from the errors of his national 
creed, to follow the revelations of God in his soul, will also both 
authorize and require the Homanist to reject the Authority of his 
Church, and the Protestant that of his Bible, whenever the one 
or the other inculcates upon him as divine that which falls 
beneath the highest Ideal of his soul. To do otherwise is 
Ecclesiolatry or Bibliolatry : this is the modern Heathenism^ 
which, having supplanted the ancient, has for ages imitated the 
old craft of slandering as Atheists or Infidels (i. e. unfaithful, 
treacherous) all who aspire to a higher and purer worship. 
Among ourselves, Bibliolatry makes pretensions so haughty, of 
being alone pure, alone pious, alone spiritual, alone infallible, 
that I feel it a duty to encounter the pain of exposing the 
erroneous foundation of men, many of whom I honour, esteem 
and love as the excellent of the earth. 



40 



THE SOUL : 



ENGLISH IDOLATRY. 

That part of English society which, has most diligently cul- 
tivated religious feeling by the aid of the Hebrew and Christian 
Scriptures, allows wide currency to the speculative notion, that 
the highest attainable certainty to man (if indeed there be any 
other certainty at all) concerning spiritual matters, is that which 
the testimony of the Bible affords. This is a natural exag- 
geration flowing out of their just love for a noble book ; but a 
very little calm thought is sufficient to dispel the error, which is 
neither small nor harmless. No heaven-sent Bible can gua- 
rantee the veracity of God to a man who doubts that veracity. 
Unless we have independent means of knowing that God knows 
the truth, and is disposed to tell it to us, his word (if we be ever 
so certain that it is really his word) might as well not have been 
spoken. But if we know, independently of the Bible, that God 
knows the truth, and is disposed to tell it to us, obviously we 
know a great deal more also. We know not only the existence 
of God, but much concerning his character. For only by dis- 
cerning that he has Virtues similar in kind to human Virtues, 
do we know of his truthfulness and his goodness. Without this 
a priori belief, a book-revelation is a useless impertinence : hence 
no book-revelation can (without sapping its own pedestal) 
authoritatively dictate laws of human Virtue, or alter our a 
priori view of the Divine Character. The nature of the case 
implies, that the human mind is competent to sit in moral and 
spiritual judgment on a professed revelation ; and to decide (if 
the case seem to require it) in the following tone : " This doc- 
trine attributes to God, that which we should all call harsh, 
cruel, or unjust in Man ; it is therefore intrinsically inadmissible : 
for if God may be (what we should call) cruel, he may equally 
well be (what we should call) a liar ; and if so, of what use is 
his Word to us?" And in fact, all Christian apostles and mis- 
sionaries, like the Hebrew prophets, have always refuted 
Paganism by direct attacks on its immoral and unspiritual 
doctrines ; and have appealed to the consciences of heathens, as 
competent to decide in the controversy. Christianity itself has 
thus practically confessed, what is theoretically clear, that an 
authoritative external revelation of moral and spiritual truth, is 
essentially impossible to man. What God reveals to us, he re- 
veals within, through the medium of our moral and spiritual 
senses. External teaching mav be a training of those senses, 



SENSE OF THE INFINITE. 



41 



but affords no foundation for certitude. Our certainty in divine 
truth cannot be more certain than the veracity of our inward 
organs of discernment ; and must undoubtedly be far less, if it 
is liable to be overthrown also by historical, geographical, or 
psychological errors involved in the immense sweep of argu- 
ment which undertakes to prove that the Bible is infallible. 

The search after the Philosopher's Stone or after Perpetual 
Motion, was a less pitiful imbecility, than this modern notion 
that fallible man can, by selecting his own Bible or his own 
Church, or by demonstrating the infallibility of the system in 
which he was educated, get rid of his natural fallibility. It 
obviously cleaves to him like his own personality, and infects 
every decision at which he arrives. Those therefore use words 
of wild boasting, who with superior pity look down on another 
as " without chart and without compass on the deep," because 
he does not admit the infallibility of the Bible. 

Take any practical question of detail, as, " How shall I con- 
duct myself in this moral conjuncture of affairs ?" or, " How 
ought I to think of God and feel towards Him P" and consider 
two ways of seeking for a reply. The one is to study the ques- 
tions, in their practical limitation, by such direct insight as we 
have, or can get. The other method, is, first to master the infi- 
nitely greater and more arduous question, "Is or is not the Bible 
fallible ?" and after determining in the negative, then to elicit its 
decisions on the points of doubt. But to prove the infallibility 
of a book that contains twenty thousand propositions, is evidently 
impossible by any testing of its contents, — a process which 
would need Omniscience in the inquirer. It must then either be 
simply assumed without any attempt at proof or verification 
(which is by far the commonest method), or it must be rested on 
external credentials, which, treating it as a sealed book, attempt 
nevertheless to establish a priori that all which it contains must 
be true. No man is qualified to judge on an arduous and com- 
plex argument, who does not see that the latter, even if ad- 
missible in principle, is beyond the powers of the many ; and 
vastly more difficult to the few, than any (strictly personal) ques- 
tions of practical life. But an intermediate method is highly 
popular ; to set forth the excellence of a great deal in the Bible 
to which our Consciences bear witness ; and then deduce that all 
persons are wicked, who deny the authority and infallibility of 
the book. This, forsooth, from those who pity, scorn or dread 
the man, who says that Conscience is, after all, the best guide ! 
This from those, who are actually maintaining, that when Con- 
science and the Book come into collision, we must believe Con- 



42 



THE SOUL : 



science to be wrong and the Book right ! for that is the whole 
meaning of its " authority since, until such collision arises, no 
practical trial of authority can be made. But in this way, every 
religious system can guarantee its infallibility to us. Romanism 
or Mohammedanism has many points which our consciences ap- 
prove; therefore each of these systems is divine and infallible : 
therefore we are to believe the system in preference to conscience 
when the two clash ! No internal and moral argument, appeal- 
ing to conscience, can ever rightly supersede and dethrone con- 
science : in fact, a doctrine which aims at this, under the name 
of an "Authoritative Bevelation," aims to destroy our moral sen- 
sibilities. If, because conscience approves something in the Bible, 
we are to revere the Bible ; it must be conceded, that if in any 
thing conscience dissents, we must withhold reverence and ap- 
proval. 

Men of different complexions and blood, ages and countries, 
ranks and culture, exhibit a great agreement as to their decisions 
concerning moral right and wrong, when a question is proposed 
in such a form that no personal bias or special prejudice affects 
them. The same is approximately true of purely spiritual doc- 
trines, in proportion as men become spiritually exercised, though 
it is far harder to get rid of special prejudice, rising out of their 
national creed. On the other hand, a vast experience proves, 
that even the ablest, best and w 7 isest men are liable to the most 
extravagant delusions when they undertake to judge the general 
and broad question, whether a national religion is guaranteed to 
tiiem by supernatural testimony. It is therefore a gross blunder 
to aim at greater certitude, by resting the truth of our special 
opinions in morals and religion, on our knowledge of the truth of 
our national creed. Most truly has it been said, that creeds are 
a geographical product : and Bibliolatry * is the British form of 
idolatry. One nation has been educated to believe the infalli- 
bility of a book, another of a church ; each method is no doubt 
convenient for those who want to drill men's minds into unifor- 
mity ; each may also have aided towards some external results, 
too valuable to be slighted : but to imagine that either mode 
of arbitrary assumption can conduce to religious certitude, is 
absurd. 

* It must be remembered, that the result of the preceding analysis is, 
that Bibliolatry does not consist in reverence to the Bible, however great, 
as long as Conscience is too dull to rise above the Bible; but it consists 
in depressing Conscience to the Biblical standard. This is done to a fatal 
extent by thousands, in regard to the Old Testament, and by hundreds in 
regard to the New. 



SENSE OF THE INFINITE. 



43 



Our knowledge of God is limited as is our knowledge of the 
Infinite Heaven, by the susceptibility of (mental and bodily) eye- 
sight which he has vouchsafed to us. Up to the limit of such 
perfection as the human soul can attain, our knowledge of God 
may reach : no higher : and as He is infinite, and we are finite, 
there will always be in Him an immeasurable depth unsounded. 
Hence, I repeat, we have no absolute knowledge of him. But on 
the other hand, He has revealed Himself to us as to all things 
which pertain to life and godliness; and whoever despises as 
mean and insufficient that inward revelation of the heart, will 
never found any thing so enduring in its place, but will elabo- 
rately build mazes of false Theology for the wonder and contempt 
of future days. Whole tons of such rubbish have been shovelled 
away by universal consent : yet the idolaters of Church and Bible 
take no warning. The immediate practical mischief is, that 
instead of exercising his conscience to discern good and evil, 
the Bibliolater (in proportion to his consistency and earnestness) 
exercises only his logical intellect to interpret, like a lawyer, the 
written document proposed to him. Hence the saying attributed 
to Luther, (a man who in practice was by no means wedded to 
so degrading a maxim,) Bonus grammaticus bonus tlieologus. Why 
should any one exert the free energies of thought, why should he 
study to develop from within a knowledge of Right and Wrong, 
when, if his results clash with those of the book, he will have to trim 
and prune himself into its shape ? It is easier and safer to crush 
inward sentiment, in order to receive Truth by testimony from 
without ! This is the carnal and dense covert, under which every 
system of superstition in its turn has found shelter ; and which, 
if it be not torn down, will in every age foster as much unclean- 
ness and cruelty in the church, as the moral light abroad in the 
world will allow.* In fact, experience shows that these evils will 
find apology or active support with thousands of the pious. 

* It is instructive to see how in every age men adopt the specious tone 
of dignified rebuke and threat against religious improvement. Euripides 
puts the following into the mouth of Greek orthodoxy: " The Divine 
might is slow to come forth, but sure nevertheless ; and it chastises those 
mortals who foster insensate obstinacy, who from mad Opinion refuse to 
exalt the institutions of the Gods. Subtly and perseveringly do They 
hide their foot in ambush, and catch the impious man. For never should 
we indulge convictions and meditations which are wiser than established 
practices. For cheap is the effort to believe that the Divinity, whatever 
else He may be, is powerful : and what comes from long time is esta- 
blished eternally and inheres in Nature." Eur. Bacch. 882 — 896 ; and 
to the same effect, 385 — 396, and elsewhere. 

The impiety here rebuked consisted in disapproving of Bacchanalian 
orgies ! That such rebukes often came from grave sincerity is beyond a 



44 



THE SOUL. 



The alarm and anxiety felt by so many well-meaning persons 
at every thing which breaks down the sacredness of the Letter, 
would be abated by a calm retrospect at the very same event in 
apostolic times. Then also there were two classes who cast off 
allegiance to the Law, — those who spurned restraint on their pas- 
sions, and those who were spiritually enlightened to desire and 
demand a higher rule. The latter are unseen or distrusted ; a few 
of the former suffice to raise a wild outcry about " Antinomian- 
ism." Yet it was no divine voice heard by the outward ear, in 
the midst of clouds and flame, that abolished the Law to the 
mind of Paul and his Jewish fellow-converts. Believing that that 
Law had actually thus been once sanctioned on Mount Sinai, they 
yet held that it was now repealed to them by the inward gift of 
the Spirit, which more than fulfilled and hereby superseded the 
Law. For this they were regarded as impious ; for this Paul 
underwent slander and persecution from the Judaizers, who in 
such doctrine saw only lawlessness and contempt of all things 
sacred. In the Gentile Church time has built up a new law of 
the letter ; and now, as before, two parties revolt against it, some 
to use their liberty as an occasion for the flesh, others to stand 
fast in the liberty wherewith God has made them free, and avoid 
being again entangled in the yoke of bondage. The noise and 
rudeness of a few profligates throw quiet people into panic, and 
too often drive them into uncharitableness and formality. Let- 
law abide for the constraint of the lawless : — the duties of the 
magistrate are unquestionable : — but let not spiritual sentiment 
be dwarfed under pretence of training it. Three centuries of 
Protestantism demonstrate, that the supremacy of the letter will 
never give an end of bitter controversy, nor any of that enlarged 
wisdom and recognition of goodness, in which we are so scanda- 
lously deficient. 

doubt. Elsewhere the same speaker is made to say: " Oh! blessed is he, 
whose God is good (or, who is favoured by the god) ; Who, initiated in 
Divine ceremonies, Hallows his life by rule, And yields his soul to the 
sacred Troop, And roams with Bacchus on the mountains, In pure sanc- 
tifications." 

If this surprise the English reader, let him be assured, that a future 
age will be equally surprised to look back on our Christian Sects ; which 
(with small exception^ labour each with deep purpose to inculcate as 
divine and immovable all that is in each established, and agree to de- 
nounce as impious any one who in good earnest gives his heart to search 
after "the good and acceptable and perfect will of God." 



CHAPTER IIL 



THE SENSE OF SIN. 



Wheue the traditionary impure influences of early crude reli- 
gion have been happily worked off, to such a degree that the 
new elements are allowed to display their proper tendencies ; no 
sooner does it become distinctly conceived that the God of nature 
is the God of our consciences, and that all wrong doing is frowned 
on by Him, than the two new terms Holiness and Sin are needed. 
To murder or to betray, are no longer merely offences against 
man, — which we call crime ; they also offend God, and are sins. 
In this state were the Hebrews from even an early period ; and 
God, as abhorring sin, was entitled by them a Holy God. Where 
Polytheism and its degenerate deities were honoured, such phrases 
could not enter the common language even of philosophers ; yet, 
in Greece for instance, philosophers of a religious turn un- 
doubtedly held the fundamental notion involved in them. 

We cannot pretend to sound the mystery, whence come the new 
births in certain souls. To reply, " The Spirit bloweth where 
He listeth," confesses the mystery, and declines to explain it. 
But it is evident that individuals in Greece, in the third century 
before the Christian era, were already moving towards an intelli- 
gent heart-worship, or had even begun to practise it. The most 
eminent extant proof of this, is in the beautiful hymn of Clean- 
thes to Jupiter.* Even in old Herodotus we see the cordial re- 
sponse of his conscience to the sentiment which he emphatically 
approves, — that the Gods hate and punish the desire of sin, as 
itself a sin : and this is the germ of all spirituality. Thus God 
for the first time is acknowledged as Lord of the conscience, and 
is conceived of as a God who searches the heart. Thus, if the 



♦ See Note 1 to this Chapter. 



48 



THE SOUL: 



thought be legitimately unravelled, Duty, from having been finite, 
becomes an infinite thing ; thus Sin also enlarges its dimensions 
proportionally, and may soon assume a formidable aspect. Yet 
religion by no means runs forward in one stream, and we shall 
have to trace its separate courses. 

Two very different causes may in this stage induce deep in- 
ward distress ; tenderness of conscience, and unregulated passion. 
God is terrible to the one as abhorring, to the latter some- 
times only as punishing, sin. Both believe Him to be justiy 
angry with them ; both inquire how they shall appease Him : 
out of which grows the totally new phenomenon of internal con- 
flict. 

If there be any side of practical religion over the perversions 
of which one may groan, it is this ; for there is none, as to which 
an unmanly or cruel superstition stands in so close contact with 
profound and reasonable sensitiveness of conscience. There is 
in fact an intense contrast between the moral Self-Despair inci- 
dent to every holy nature, and the unmoral Self-Degradation of 
the superstitious. Yet so common has the latter been in the 
history of the world, so hidden in the sacred recesses of the heart 
is the former ordinarily kept, that the mass of a nation in which 
intellectual cultivation is gaining general diffusion, is apt to mis- 
take the former for the latter; and even religious teachers, while 
healing the deep wounds which superstition has planted in the 
soul, very often skin them over with callosity. Nowhere is 
truth and error, right and morbid feeling, so miserably entan- 
gled : nowhere is it harder to vindicate the sensibilities of rea- 
sonable devotion, without seeming to lay a foundation for despi- 
cable superstition. But let it be remembered, that, as human 
characters are not purely separable into two classes, the good 
and the bad, so neither is human religion ; and in those who are 
manifestly very superstitious, there may be a larger share of true 
devotion than in the calmer and clearer intellects which despise 
their follies : for clearness of thought by no means necessarily 
implies depth of soul, and may be joined with a very partial 
experience of the most impulsive principles in man. 

The reader must be many times cautioned against supposing 
that I am about to detail processes of heart through which I 
imagine that all persons pass or ought to pass. No two men, 
no two nations, no two ages, are quite alike. A Natural His- 
tory does not imply the description of any individual, but of a 
very few leading types which collectively represent the nature in 
its divergencies : and I regard these pages as only an Essay to- 
wards the object in question. Moreover, I am aiming princi- 



THE SENSE OF SIN. 



47 



pally at that, which will conduce to an understanding of practical 
truth and error, of spiritual realities and their counterfeits. 

If the sense of sin becomes acute, so that misery follows with- 
out any action of Shame and Fear from man's knowledge of our 
guilt, then, whatever the character of that guilt, the heart is not 
yet hardened and hopelessly depraved. Total and (to human 
eyes) hopeless depravation is in the case of triumphant selfishness. 
In the habitual seducer of innocence, the conscious trader in 
vice, the avaricious poisoner, the hired ruffian, — the moral para- 
lysis may seem complete. But not only so : in the pampered 
and proud man, who has long regarded his own ease and indul- 
gence as the sole end for which he and those around him live, — 
the voluptuary upon principle, — (even though he commit no 
crime and can be taxed with no physical vice or excess), — the 
Soul must be so torpid, that ordinarily nothing but external 
calamities can rouse it. Tor Selfishness is the direct antagonist 
to the Sense of the Infinite : the former cramps us within our 
own miserable body, the latter spreads one abroad into the uni- 
verse. The thoroughly selfish know not what Sin means, nor 
what God means, nor that they have got a Soul : if once they 
break the bounds of Habit, so as to fall into crime, mere teach- 
ing without training is utterly useless. Like fierce or crafty 
beasts, they need a cage and club, not a religious instructor. 

The most respectable passion of which such are susceptible, is 
Shame after detection : but to such lamentable cases allusion is 
here made, solely in order to remark that Shame must not be 
confounded with Remorse. Shame is a moral suffering, excited 
by the eye of man; Remorse* is a convulsion of the Soul, as it 
consciously stands under the eye of God : thus Remorse alone 
has anything to do with our present discussion. 

Remorse for sin does certainly prhove tat the Soul is not dead; 
just as the agony of a wound proves be body to be alive : in 
the same sense only is the one and the other to be desired. But 
Remorse is not a sanctifying principle : on the contrary, it is an 
exceedingly dangerous one ; and the Soul may die of it, as truly 
as the Body of acute pain. It often drives men to despair, to 
frenzied iniquity, and thus to final hardness of heart ; conse- 
quently, such tenets of (what is called) Religion as artificially 

* I use this word according to what seems to me its genuine sense ; 
that is, not to mean any or all sorrow for sin, but that misery of self-con- 
demnation which follows the idea that the evil which we have done is irre- 
parable : thus Remorse is closely akin to Despair. Some portion of it 
clings to the offender even after he has attained a sense of pardon, if his 
offence seem to have caused irretrievable mischief to others. 



48 



THE SOUL: 



aggravate it are a horrible calamity. Its milder action impairs 
spiritual life in some natures more than all other causes : in its 
coarser forms it generates Asceticism and every kind of soul- 
burdening and body-destroying superstition. I find it too pain- 
ful to pursue details of the latter kind, and see that it cannot be 
needed : most readers know enough of these hideous perversions. 
It will suffice to confine ourselves to the purely internal results 
of the milder sort of Kemorse, which is often called a Bad Con- 
science before God. 

The moral uses of religion are, to enliven man's conscience, 
strengthen his will, elevate his aspirations, content him with 
small supplies to his lower wants, rouse all his generous tenden- 
cies, and hereby ennoble him altogether ; but it can do none of 
these things effectually, except when it keeps him steadily look- 
ing into the face of the Infinite and Infinitely Pure One. Now 
this is to most persons exceedingly hard. The mere formalist, 
in whom spirituality is quite undeveloped, does not see God as a 
heart-searcher at all : and long after that stage is passed, and 
men are intellectually quite alive to this point, they yet continue, 
in their devotions, as it were to turn only their side, and a blind 
eye, towards God. They speak at Him, but not to Him ; for 
they instinctively flinch from His holy gaze. This is ordinarily 
true, even if no particular sin distresses the conscience ; but if 
they have been busying themselves to improve their conduct, if 
they have made solemn resolutions, — and broken them, — it is 
harder than ever to meet God. Especially, if with active good- 
will they have tried to amend their inward faults ; — to repress 
evil desire, to cultivate meekness and love; — the conscience 
rapidly becomes more sensitive, and taxes them with a thousand 
sins before unregarded. The evil thus gets worse : the wor- 
shipper is less and less able to look boldly up into the Pure All- 
seeing eye : and he perhaps keeps working at his heart to infuse 
spiritual affections by some direct process, under the guidance 
of the Will. It cannot be done. He quickens his conscience 
thus, but he does not strengthen his soul : hence he is perpetually 
undertaking tasks beyond his strength, — making bricks without 
straw ; a very Egyptian slavery. He believes that he ought to 
love his God with all his heart, and yet feels that he assuredly 
does not. Nay, he is constantly breaking his resolutions, being 
too lazy to resist habit or carried away by temptation. He at 
length appears like a fly in a spider's web, which is the worse 
entangled, the more it struggles; so that he may well seem in 
danger, not indeed of insanity of intellect, but of permanently 
morbid soul. If such a case becomes known to good people 



THE SENSE OF SIN. 



49 



around, who have had no experience of such conflicts, they ima- 
gine that a change of air and scene is wanted, and diversion of 
the mind : — which may sometimes really be true, if intellectual 
errors concerning God have complicated the case : at least I pre- 
sume there is no doubt that any prolongation of so wretched a 
state might disorder the brain physically, especially if it inter- 
fered with sleep. Put aside such sad and extreme cases : and 
let us ask, What is the spiritual cure ? 

Some will reply, that he needs to believe the doctrine of the 
Atonement of Christ, and of forgiveness of sins on the sole con- 
dition of his having Faith in it. If this is solemnly urged upon 
him by those whom he loves and respects, it is more than pos- 
sible that he sets about self-examination to find out whether he 
has got Faith or not. He perhaps always believed the proposi- 
tion intellectually, and he knows that numbers of irreligious men 
also believe it : a mere historical Faith will not do : is then his 
Faith of the right kind ? How can it be ? for Faith works by 
Love, and exhibits itself in Spiritual Action ; and he sees himself 
defective in both. To believe that he has Faith, is to believe 
that he is a Saint ; but he is not a Saint, — a sanctified one : 
the more he looks inwardly on himself, the worse he feels his 
case to be, and the clearer the proof that he has no true Faith. 
But what is this faith ? is it assent to a general proposition ? 
He does indeed assent, but so do the devils. Is it, assent to 
the specicd proposition, that the individual M. N. is forgiven 
through Christ ? but the question returns, How is that to be 
known from any authoritative book-revelation ? — Thus confusion 
may well become worse confounded. 

No intellectual proposition, however true, can, as such, bring 
Peace to a wounded soul ; though it may incidentally and in- 
directly guide to that action which alone does bring peace ; 
namely, to an unreserved exposure of the heart to the eye of God. 
This is the desirable consummation, to which all the previous dis- 
tress was preparatory ; and nearly all of that distress might perhaps 
have been avoided, if the man had been better taught. Yet no 
one can say how much severe goading one or another may need, 
before he dares to rush as it were straight into God's* presence, 
consciously unfaithful and uncleansed. To many a man perhaps, 
his own act is as one of desperation. He faces that bright and 
pure Sun, which seems to scorch his eyes, and says : Slay me, O 
God, if Thou wilt ; I deserve it ; I am miserable ; but leave me 
not sinful thus. Put me to shame : I am shameful. Behold ! 

* Or Christ's presence ; which is with the majority only a change of 
name. In future this will not need mention. 

D 



50 



THE SOUL: 



I hide nothing. Thou art light : expose my darkness. I will 
not palliate. I am worse than I know. Show me all that I am. 
1 cannot heal myself. If I must die, I will die in Thy Light. 

Oh, wonderful simplicity of Faith ! he is faithful, and knows 
it not. He has trusted himself to the Judge of all the earth ; 
he has abandoned all self-justification : his heart is broken, and 
is ready to welcome Mercy undeserved : he has believed in God's 
good will, and in His eternal purpose to destroy sin ; he has 
himself become a real hater of sin : and, — though he knows not 
why, — he is therefore already in perfect peace. He has followed 
conscience through cloud and storm into the fiery presence of 
the Eternal, till fear has dropt off in His nearness. The har- 
mony of Heaven and Earth is begun within the man's soul, be- 
cause his will is subdued to God's will ; and thus Self-despair, 
joined to Faith, has led to peace with God. He is guileless now 
as a child : quiet therefore and easy, though in fullest conscious- 
ness that God is reading his heart to the bottom. Before, he 
thought of God as a severe judge ; now, he feels that he is a 
compassionate Father. — Guilelessness is the whole secret of 
divine peace ; and happy are any who attain it without a con- 
vulsion of soul preceding. Some hearts fight longer and harder 
against God's full supremacy ; others perhaps yield so easily, 
that none of this description applies : of that we shall have more 
to say in the next Chapter. But come how it may, this is the 
thing. " Blessed is he to whom the Lord imputeth not sin; in 
whose spirit there is no guile." 

The value however of this experience to the soul is great, be- 
cause it now has learned how to get peace, especially if the 
phenomena have been brought out so sharply, that the intellect 
can read the case without practical error. Unhappily, most 
persons mix up the theories of others and fixed traditional 
doctrines with their own realities ; and hence entanglement and 
frequent mischief. But, from the establishment of this guileless- 
ness of heart, and peace flowing out of it, a new era of spiritual 
life necessarily commences. God himself appears practically in a 
new relation, as a Father : for though the intellect may long ago 
have approved that title, the soul had previously no true filial 
feeling : thus the case passes over into that reserved for our 
fourth Chapter ; which it is not convenient here to pursue. But 
when Peace is established, the first great problem is solved. 
Only by meeting the gaze of God can the impure soul be puri- 
fied : this had been too terrible a process : and the soul had 
shrunk from it. Why ? first perhaps and chiefly, because it clung 
to the desire of palliating its offences : it did not cast itself abso- 



THE SENSE OF SIN. 



51 



lutely and totally on Divine Mercy, but tried to reserve some excuse 
and partial justification. Hence it never attained the position of 
absolute dependence and self-abandonment. It desired to do 
its duty to God, and have a surplus of independent rights for 
itself. While struggling for this, it wished to be better, but not 
infinitely better; wished so to act, as not to incur just reproof 
from God, but probably did not wish to have him as a constant 
resident in the heart. His Ail-seeing eye searching the soul was 
submitted to as a necessity, not desired as a glorious privilege : 
hence when self-consciousness reached a certain intensity, peace 
became impossible to one who had pure and spiritual views of 
the divine perfection. But now, things are changed ; he says 
calmly, " Thou, Lord, knowest thy servant and wonderful 
to write or think, the finite impure man has complacency in the 
pervading presence of the infinite and pure God. Now therefore 
a new course of sanctification may commence : for it is only by 
contact with God's spirit that the human spirit can possibly be 
sanctified. 

A striking phenomenon in the history of religion, is, the 
struggle between the spiritual and the unspiritual elements of 
human nature to retain or to evade this close contact of the 
worshipper with Supreme Purity. Even in early Paganism it is 
seen how a Jupiter or a Brahma was superseded by secondary 
deities. — by an Apollo, a Minerva, a Ganesa, a Vishnu, a Surya, 
— and these in turn by others still inferior, when long-continued 
reverence had elevated even a secondary name into primary rank. 
The same pernicious principle is familiar in Christianity under 
the name of Mediation ; from which it is the just boast of the Pre- 
Babylonian Judaism to have kept itself entirely free. By a 
Mediator is understood a being higher than man, but lower than 
God ; whose avowed office is to shield the soul, conscious of its 
guilt, from the painful sense of God's immediate presence ; to 
intercept the too fierce splendour of the divine countenance, and 
enable the soul to transact its affairs with God through the 
medium of God's deputy. Conjoined with this is the idea, that 
God himself is too high to sympathize rightly and fully with us ; 
that he does not accurately know our infirmities, because he has 
not experienced them; and that we shall meet more candid 
allowance, and obtain mercy on better terms, from some inferior 
being. These two feelings, — a guilty dread of meeting God, and 
an unbelief of his sympathy or fair judgment, — must combine 
before the Mediatorial doctrine is complete. That neither of the 
two ought to be cherished, or treated tenderly ; that on the con- 
trary, the attempt to invent a svstem of religion which should 

D 2 



52 



THE SOUL : 



gratify and establish them, deserves to be gravely censured and 
warmly deprecated ; — I see not how to doubt. To imagine that 
God himself does not know our infirmities, might be called mon- 
strous, were it not too puerile. To suppose that we shall meet 
with more allowance from one more susceptible of being tempted 
like ourselves, either dishonours God, as-wanting in pure and 
right mercy, or unduly comforts, with the hope of mercy, him 
who ought not to be comforted. On the other hand, to spare 
the sinner the intense pain of confronting his God, by shutting 
out the sight of God, is to thwart his only sanctification ; to 
which that sight is essential. The proper business of the teacher 
is not to introduce a screen, which shall intercept some of the 
rays of God's glory, and hinder man from seeing the true face of 
God: all the effort must be the other way; to clear and 
strengthen the eye, so that it may not discolour the divine 
countenance with human vindictiveness. Many talk in such a 
tone about " God in Christ," as though this were a Being 
essentially different from the true and real God ; as though Christ 
did not show them God as He is, but some assumed appearance : 
which is a virtual confutation of their theory. 

Now where the place of Mediator is held by priests, saints, or 
a Virgin, it would appear that uncompensated mischief results : 
but as applied to Jesus Christ, the doctrine of Mediation is far 
more perplexed, owing to the manifold and complicated tenets held 
concerning his person. There are some who teach that he was 
less than God, and accordingly a fit Mediator between God and 
man. Where such mediation is not a mere name, received by 
tradition ; — where he is effectively believed to be a more lenient 
judge than God ; — to me it appears certain, that the belief is 
purely evil. But during the healthy outburst of early Chris- 
tianity, when Jesus was first brought forward as a Mediator, a 
true spiritual instinct seems to have interposed against the mis- 
chief. The reverential imagination of the Church at Antioch 
sublimated its One Mediator into something spiritually undis- 
tinguishable from the morally perfect and omniscient God ; — 
into an ever-present heart- searching Being, with eyes of fire, 
sinless and separate from sinners, an omnipotent Judge, the 
breath of whose lips shall slay the wicked. For the soul to pre- 
sent itself before such a One, was (spiritually and morally) iden- 
tical with presenting itself before God the Father. Paul conse- 
quently was able truly to say : "We all with face unveiled be- 
holding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord (Christ), are trans- 
figured into the same image, from glory to glory, seeing that it is 
ly a Lord who is Spirit." For his Christ and that of the Gentile 



THE SENSE OF SIN. 



53 



Churches was not a man whom he had seen and heard walking 
in Judea, nor about whom they learned from the pages of a 
book ; but one at whom they gazed " in the mirror" of their own 
souls, and with whom they sought fellowship in secret meditation. 
This may have been, with many, a logical Polytheism : probably 
enough : for the Christian Church has always zealously trampled 
down logic, first, in grasping at spirituality, and next in osten- 
tatious mortifying of the common understanding. As to the 
case before us, the Mediation was in fact made nominal, as soon 
as Jesus was elevated to a moral equality with God : for, except 
any one held the barbarous notion that the Second person of the 
Trinity had more sympathy with man than the First, it was 
equally arduous to the soul to unbosom itself to the Son, as to 
the Father. In point of fact, I believe that the most fruitful 
and living religion in Christendom has generally been found 
among those who most emphatically deified Christ : — and that, 
— because nothing short of this can neutralize the noxious doc- 
trine of mediation, and convert it into a mere name. 

Yet it must be confessed, that no one can foresee the oppo- 
sites, which result in different minds from a verbal formula, 
which has dared to despise self-consistency.* For instance, 
while one, believing that " Jesus is Jehovah," (according to the 
unabashed Sabellianism of modern Christians,) innocently wor- 
ships Jehovah under the newer name of Jesus ; another picks out 
of the same ample creed a permission to expect from the human 
sympathy of Christ a forgiveness of sins which he could not have 
expected from God himself. Contradictions may be believed in 
alternate minutes by the same mind ; but they can never be 
blended into a single whole, or be received by the same grasp of 
the soul. Hence the fate of a formal creed which admits them, 
is to be torn into shreds, of which each votary carries away his 
favourite portion, while each in name does homage to all. 

But when thus in the early Gentile Church, the spirituality, 
which had been endangered by the mediatorial doctrine, was 
saved at the expense, first, of losing self-consistency, and secondly, 
of incurring thorny controversies, by which to this hour enmity 
and jealousy, confusion and every evil sentiment is propagated ; 
— guilty consciences, defrauded of their mediation, sought out 
new mediators between themselves and Jesus, now that he was 
felt to be the very Being, before whom guilt shudders. But the 
new mediators, (of whom the Virgin Mary has carried off by far 
the largest honour,) have only received divine worship, and have 



* See Note 2 at the end of this Chapter, 



54 



THE SOUL : 



never been invested by the imagination with the purely divine 
attributes : hence the adoration has been a gratuitous and bane- 
ful idolatry, the scandal and ruin of Christian Churches. To 
these mediators petitions are addressed, which could not be 
offered to the All Pure God. They forgive sin on easier or on 
other terms than He ; and the fruit of it all, is, to make the 
heart of the righteous sad, and to speak peace to the wicked, 
while continuing in his wickedness. 

We return from this digression, to the case of him, who, whe- 
ther he call that God whom his inmost soul discerns, by the 
name of Jesus or Jehovah, yet at any rate comes into direct 
and positive contact of spirit with his highest Ideal of Purity. 
Such a one has commenced to live in the Spirit ; but oh, how 
many derangements do old habit and ever-young passion and the 
world around us offer to the progress of the new life ! However, 
pass we all these. Suppose the worshipper faithful and brave, 
never swerving from his new course ; and that, animated by 
God's presence, his Will assumes energy so great, that all Duty 
is successfully performed, all temptations scornfully trodden down, 
so that the kingdom of God within him seems to go forth con- 
quering and to conquer. Are then his conflicts past, and is his 
peace perpetual ? Ought it not to be so ? Will it not perhaps be 
^o, when the experience of one becomes available to another, and 
ignorance is dispelled ? Be this as it may, now certainly each 
man seems to learn for himself from the beginning, and discovers 
little by little to his great discomfort what should have been 
known long ago from such as Paul and Luther and Bunyan. 
And what is this ? Why, it is discovered that the Will has no 
power over the Affections. While both were in disorder, while a 
man's Will was half for God and half for independence from 
God, he did not find this out distinctly : he then blamed his 
entire nature. But now that his Will is really subdued, he 
begins to discern that his impulses refuse to be guided by it, and 
regards therefore one half only of his nature as diseased,* He 
resolves to speak with meekness ; but he finds himself excited 
and bitter, if not in word, yet in heart. He resolves to be 

* "I delight in the law of God after the inward man [The Will] ; 
hut I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my 
mind ; and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my 
members." Rom. vii. 22, 23. From this phenomenon, it has been 
almost inevitable for Christians to conceive of the right Will as a pure 
and divine spirit, recently infused, and the reluctant or perverse Affection 
as an old or corrupt nature, for which (nowadays) Adam is made to bear 
the blame. 



THE SENSE OF SIN. 



55 



chaste ; and his thoughts become impure. He resolves to wor- 
ship God iu spirit ; but his mind wanders into countless imagi- 
nations. He resolves to be contented ; and his heart swells 
with a foolish ambition. He resolves to be humble ; but he is 
mortified that somebody gave him too little honour. He re- 
solves to be simple; yet he said something to make himself 
admired. And so all through, " when he would do good, evil is 
present with him." Many persons (perhaps most) are liable to 
be reduced hereby to a state of distress, scarcely less than that 
from which they had escaped : especially if, from the peace for 
a short time enjoyed, they fancied they were really going to be 
as perfect as they sincerely entreated to be made. 

Thus men, aiming at a spiritual life, often become uncon- 
trolled in invective against the unmanageable side of their 
nature, — that very side of it in which alone activity resides, — and 
denounce it as totally evil and incurable. Paul calls it a body of 
death, to which he regarded himself as miserably tied. Indeed 
it may seem to be impossible that a really vehement and passion- 
ate desire after God's perfect holiness should be excited in the 
human soul, and its utterance yet retain logical coherence and be 
duly measured. The same Paul who so severely lashes his nature 
and declares : " I myself with the mind [Will] serve the law of 
God, but with my flesh [Affections] the law of sin :" yet distinctly 
shows us that he did not regard himself as responsible for this 
imperfection. For he disowns this part of his nature, as not him- 
self : " If then I do that which I would not, it is no more I that do 
it, but Sin that dwelleth in me." His comfort, his sufficient com- 
fort, is not, that Christ has atoned for it, — (that indeed might 
prove too much ; for it would apply to sins of the Will, as 
well as to imperfection of the Affections,) — but, that nothing but 
his Will is he himself. If his Will commands his Heart not to 
covet, and yet the heart will covet, Paul declares, <e My flesh 
has sinned, but I have not." Of course then he had nothing to 
repent of : he felt grief, vexation, disappointment, but not self- 
reproach : not one sting of it \ and therefore no cloud passed 
between his soul and God. 

It is of great importance to discern, that what is popularly 
called, <c the total depravity of human nature," is more correctly 
the essential eternal imperfection of every created existence : and 
that that imperfection which is strictly necessary must not be 
appropriated by us as Sin. In order to be morally perfect, we 
should need at once infinite wisdom^ and affections of infinite 
power ; and these are the incommunicable prerogatives of God : 
hence every creature,— angels and archangels, beatified saints, 



56 



THE SOUL : 



and Adam fresh from his Maker's hand, — every one is morally 
imperfect, and, if the vulgar phraseology were justifiable, would 
deserve to be called sinful. Perfection, like omnipotence, inheres 
in God alone : in this sense " He only is Holy." It is calami- 
tous that so grave an error as the confounding of unwilling im- 
perfection with sin should have been built -up out of passionate 
phrases of St. Paul when the context itself shows that what he 
calls Sin* was not counted by him as his own deed, nor there- 
fore needed to be repented of. This is one out of many examples 
of the mischief arising from the current Bibliolatry and its 
developments. For in consequence, upright souls which find 
that they are still imperfect, fall into a bad conscience, as those 
who have incurred guilt ; and have, as it were, to begin their in- 
ward life anew by confession and repentance : and when this has 
happened ten, twenty, fifty times, religion becomes a round of 
weary groaning. Nor is it easy to suppress the persuasion, that 
with many this becomes a hypocritical routine, from their ceasing 
to strive, and becoming blunted in feeling, by too much and too 
hopeless confession. On the other hand, some get to hate them- 
selves morbidly, and to be frightened away from God's presence : 
and may even in some distressing instances seem to have relapsed 
into a deplorable state of apathetic unspirituality ; differing from 
the untaught world only in a profound, dangerous and miserable 
self-despair. Self-despair joined with trust in God, is a begin- 
ning of vigorous spiritual life : self-despair without hope from 
God is too awful to think of. 

But what then is that, of which so many devout persons 
speak, — daily repentance and daily forgiveness ? Can it be all 
emptiness and morbid feeling ? I am far indeed from saying so. 
It has been laid down above, that we must distinguish between 
our failures through want of power in the spiritual affections, and 
failures from a double mind and traitorous will ; and must lament 
indeed, but on no account scourge ourselves, on account of the 
former. But there is also a third class, in a manner intermediate 
to these two, which is not to be overlooked ; namely, when we fall 
short of our own discerned standard through a weakness of 
spiritual affection which may possibly be imputed to our own 

* Poetry must have Saxon vocables, and devotion, like common love, 
spurns logical exactness. When a hymn-writer chooses to say : " Yet I 
mourn my stubbornwill ; Find my sin a grief and thrall ;" &c, it is useless 
to bid him alter " Stubborn will" into reluctant affections, and " Sin" into 
imperfection ; and yet this, and this only, is what he really means. 
Nothing is left for us, but to use interpretation, whenever is the right 
time for using the critical faculty: — but this is not during moments of 
devotion, as to which mere words matter little, 



THE SENSE OF SIN. 



67 



negligences or indolence. As our experience grows, our strength 
ought to grow, and to plead weakness is not always an adequate 
exculpation. Hence sometimes the deepest confessions come 
from those who feel themselves competent for higher duty : a 
thought which was at the bottom of Paul's utterance, — " Woe is 
unto me, if I preach not the gospel." It is not therefore always 
a mark of something extravagant, when eminently holy men ap- 
pear to be carried beyond bounds in their self-displeasure. In 
fact, in proportion as our sphere of knowledge enlarges, so does 
our responsibility ; and in the farther advance of spiritual life, it 
may seem that the affections themselves become virtually to a 
great extent at our call. Not that we are able at will to bid 
them exist and act, and that, in any intensity which we chose ; 
yet experience shows us ways of courting pure and holy feeling ; 
and if we apprehend that we have neglected these, we neces- 
sarily blame ourselves. In short, omission is probably the 
form of guilt, which is most apt to overcloud the heart, when 
all the better defined sins are subdued ; especially because it is 
often extremely difficult to ascertain whether we are or are not 
to blame. 

And here probably there will be no hazard in affirming, that 
the most spiritual men have concurred in regarding the posture 
of self-justification and palliation as so hurtful, that they prefer 
to admit their own guilt, whenever there is room to suspect it, 
Sins of omission may be unobserved and unknown. Waste of 
time and of other talents, selfishness, indolence, cowardice, neg- 
ligence, self-pleasing, nay, want of sympathy, of tenderness, of 
meekness, may be sins of the will in this sense, — that if at the 
time of temptation our will had been in its normal vigour, it 
was in our power to avoid them ; but because the mind was pre- 
occupied by something else, we did not exert ourselves ; and in 
the retrospect we now cannot tell what we might have done, if a 
holier will had been active. The same remark will apply to 
those who are called to peculiarly difficult and painful duty : as 
a wife exposed to a drunken husband ; a father, whose constant 
toil cannot save his children and their mother from famine and 
disease : a son or a servant, perpetually harassed by capricious 
and overbearing rule. The highest human virtue, when put to 
such trial, will constantly confess its shortcomings. Tor all 
such sins of Omission devout spirits mourn day by day. Fre- 
quent confession and complaint is the impulse of their nature ; 
and is found necessary to keep the conscience tender, and 
purify the heart to receive the impressions of God's near and 
ever-living activity. But this is widely different from having to 

D 5 



53 



THE SOUL: 



repent daily of deliberately wilful sin ; a thing which is abso- 
lutely irreconcilable with any but a spasmodic acting of spiritual 
life, and must imply a state of frequent misery proportioned 
to the spiritual light and sincerity of the individual. It may be 
conceived of in one who is struggling against some fierce impul- 
sive passion, which every day more or less overcomes him, and 
causes him the bitter anguish of apparently useless repentances. 
Let us pity, and if possible, aid such a one, and throw no stone 
at him : God may at length make him stand firm. But let us 
not represent his unhappy and convulsive state, as the standard 
life which alone can be proposed for human attainment ; or con- 
found the diffidence of the successful warrior, who dares not claim 
the crown, because he thinks that he might have pushed his vic- 
tory farther, with the self-reproach of the runaway soldier, whose 
back is covered with dishonourable gashes. The sacred complaint 
and sorrow which holy men, when they have done their best, still 
daily pour forth, may be called Repentance,* if so they please : 
but there is in it far more of the sweet and tender, than of the 
bitter. It is neither remorse, nor self-reproach ; and is little else 
than the outbreaking of fervent desire for a higher perfection. 

Nor must we forget the danger just now hinted at, of incur- 
ring hypocrisy, by too readily confessing as sin that against 
which we do not seriously intend to struggle. Every conven- 
tional standard of duty, to which the Soul itself makes no 
response, involves this danger; and those who find they are 
perpetually confessing the same sins and making no progress, 
have to enquire whether they are not falling into a deluding 
routine. Under the name of dreading self-righteousness, a very 
self-complacent inactivity may shelter itself : nor is it to be 
endured that any should argue from prevalent half-heartedness, 
that no higher sanctification than their own is attainable. The 
evil of not setting our hopes of present holiness high enough, is 
not unnoticed nor left without protestf in the present day. 

* In the phraseology of the Scripture, Repentance is the beginning of 
spiritual life, and not a daily process. Neither fierduoia nor per ajj.e Asia 
are attributed to the healthily advancing saint. 

f A small volume, called " Interior Life, designed for those who are 
seeking assurance of Faith and perfect Love," by Thomas C, Upham, 
(8th edition, 1848, New York,) has lately fallen into my hands, and by 
its general spirit has greatly delighted me. 

It is remarkable to see how, in the current evangelicalism, passages 
of the New Testament which expressly describe the Christian walk as 
sinless, (as I John ii. 1,) are wrested by partial quotation into the very 
opposite. Compare verses 4, 5, 6 ; also iii. 3, 4, 6. 7, 9, 10, 20, 21, 24; 
and indeed many other places. 



THE SENSE OF SIN. 



59 



There is no real humility in exaggerating the extent of our neces- 
sary sinfulness, a proceeding which will always both exculpate 
and paralyze us. Perfection is a Limit, which can never be 
reached, yet towards which w T e may approximate indefinitely. 
But if sin and self-reproach must be daily incurred, then, either no 
peace with God is possible, or else, a lieart which condemns 
itself cm have and ought to have peace and confidence before 
Him. 

A conscious uprightness is obviously necessary to any spiritual 
peace, nor does the heart need any other testimony than its own 
to the fact of its uprightness. The guileless soul knows it own 
guilelessness. If any one press us with the objection, that we 
may possibly delude ourselves, by fancying that our will is with 
God, when in fact it is not ; for that there is such a thing as 
self-delusion ; — it would be enough to reply, that a universal 
scepticism must not be set up, — in things Spiritual any more 
than in the External World, — on the mere ground that the 
spiritual (or the outward) senses are in some persons weak or 
diseased. The double-minded does deceive himself ; but neither 
does he take pains to avoid it : nor can it be pretended that he 
has any testimony of his conscience to his own unreserved self- 
searching. The veracity of our specific senses (spiritual or external) 
has its establishment from the self-congruity of results, and from 
the collateral testimonies of other minds and of lower departments 
of the same mind. This is not the place to enlarge on the 
general topic of Certitude. But we may add, the single-minded 
Soul is conscious how promptly it aspires after better success, 
the moment that failure is discerned. It is not merely vexed at 
the failure, (which might denote mortified self-admiration,) nor 
merely asks pardon, (as if more concerned with the guilt of sin, 
than with its inherent evil,) but while breathing to God, " Oh 
that my heart were as Thy heart, and that wholly," it blends 
hope with sorrow. Thus complaint is not self-reproach ; and 
instead of unprofitable dark solitary repentance, it has the light 
of God's countenance imparting cheerfulness and strength for a 
new effort. 

Some have so feared immoral consequences, if a man is al- 
lowed to distinguish between " himself " and his "flesh/ 5 that 
they have elaborately explained away St. Paul's language, (above 
quoted,) as said, not of himself, but of some other man, — or of 
himself in his old unconverted state. Yet this appears (in fact) 
gratuitously to increase whatever difficulty may be in the passage. 
For it cannot be denied that he distinctly acquits himself: 
to say then that the self so acquitted is the old unconverted 



60 



THE SOUL J 



one, is a preposterous way of saving morality. But unless I 
mistake, the prevailing desire for some sucli evasion has turned 
upon St. Paul's use of the word flesh in a sense very foreign to 
our modern notions. To me it appears to have meant all that 
part of his nature, which he felt to resist and lag behind in his 
efforts after God's perfection, and therefore eminently, the affec- 
tions of his heart and soul. But the modern European ear 
no sooner hears the word flesh, than it thinks of sensual and 
other low sins, and of offences against outward morality. Let 
moralists then be satisfied to lay down, what is most true, that 
St. Paul's self-exculpation can never be applied in regard to 
duties which Law demands of us. For Law is not made for a 
righteous man, but for the ungodly and disobedient. It is ad- 
dressed to the common capacities of nature, and puts forth claims 
on our Conduct, not on our Affections. There are morbid or 
very ill-trained persons, whose wills are scarcely responsible for 
their conduct : unless we mean to class ourselves with these, we 
cannot claim any exemption. If we are unable to observe even 
outward duties, our feebleness of Will is clearly to be blamed, and 
not the feebleness of Spiritual Affections : thus we have incurred 
guilt. 

To maintain a Good Conscience before God, and not before 
man only, is the first condition of all spiritual progress. If the 
divine life in man is to grow steadily and healthily, it is absolutely 
essential to have an abiding peace ; for, as was said, without this 
the soul will not and cannot meet the eye of its God often 
enough and regularly enough to feel its ever-purifying influence. 
But the difficulty here arises, — how are we to distinguish be- 
tween the testimony of a Good Conscience, and the complacency 
of Self-Righteousness ? It cannot be said that they are discrimi- 
nated by there being no self-contemplation in the former; for 
although this need not be prominent, yet it not only may exist, but 
probably must be more and more active with experience and self- 
knowledge. Yet, that self-righteousness is a real and not an 
imaginary evil, is very clear. — It may help us farther to investi- 
gate the subject, if we consider wherein that evil consists. 
Surely it is, that the moment we begin to admire ourselves, we 
are satisfied with the state of goodness already attained, and cease 
(for so long) to aspire after anything higher : thus the life-blood 
of the soul is arrested, and putrefying stagnation is to be feared. 
If so, self-righteousness is not the black and fatal mark of bad 
and perverse men only, but obviously besets all men at all times ; 
and it does not consist so much in thinking highly of ourselves, 
as in not caring to be better : for the humblest saint becomes 



THE SENSE OF SIX, 



61 



virtually self-righteous, as soou as he ceases to aspire towards a 
higher goodness. Such a view of the case not only removes all 
wonder that this blight of the soul should cling so firmly to us 
as holy men confess, but, if I do not mistake, will show more 
distinctly its intimate nature. 

First then, we impute Self-righteousness as a sin, chiefly where 
Self- consciousness has been developed ; for this is the stage in 
which there ought to be life and growth ; and its evil is, that it 
thwarts these. Hence it is winked at as scarcely an offence, in 
that embryo state of religion in which growth cannot be expected. 
Stagnation, or mere cold-blooded life, is the natural condition of 
those who are under the law, which is an infantine stage ; as 
also of those who are children in years : so it seems not worth 
while to censure a moderate self-righteousness in such. Perhaps 
indeed the difference between it and a good conscience is in that 
stage not yet developed : hence if a mere Old-Testament saint 
rejoices in the testimony of his conscience, it is apt to be in a 
self-righteous tone. But when a warmer and more active life of 
the soul has commenced, then a check to its current cannot be 
endured without mischief, and Self-complacency manifests itself 
as a grievous evil. 

Secondly, it now comes to differ widely from a Good Con- 
science, inasmuch as the self-complacent man measures his present 
attainments with some arbitrary finite standard, (which is pro- 
nounced to be adequate?) and admires or approves himself as a 
result of the comparison. The standard assumed may be the 
conventional routine, which in a particular religious society is held 
to characterize Piety; or may be a sort of average, struck from 
the apparent goodness of men in general, or may be an invention 
of his own : but in all cases the standard is finite, and is already 
reached by him. But the sacred happiness of a heart which 
knows it is known of God, is not derived from approving its own 
attainments, but from the very acting of its insatiable desires, 
and from its sympathy with the Source of life and joy. Its out- 
cry is after Perfection. It longs after God's own holiness : for 
this it would give Earth and Heaven. It no sooner effects one 
conquest, than it aspires after another. If God would offer to 
make it at once and wholly perfect, it would eagerly catch at 
the offer. For while it does not renounce the world, in any 
such sense as not to have a thousand objects of worldly interest 
and desire ; yet the One desire, — to please God, — so predomi- 
nates over all, that for personal attainment, the soul counts all 
things as in comparison valueless. And (where the spiritual 
stage of development has been reached) the consciousness of this 



62 



THE SOUL : 



infinite longing to be more and more like to the Only Perfect one 
seems to be the essence of a Good Conscience. He who breathes 
forth this steady desire after God's holiness, he is upright, he is 
reconciled, he is humble : and is truly in peace of conscience, 
even when most full of sacred contrition. He has no finite 
standard of goodness : for although what h£ dimly imagines as 
Perfection is only a limited idea of his own mind, it is both above 
what he has yet reached, and it rises the moment he seems about 
to reach it. This state of things may even be called the exact 
reverse of self-righteousness, — which is stagnation : in fact, the 
soul is probably so far from self-complacency, as to look with 
much severity on its own shortcomings ; because it measures 
them with the grace and mercy of God which it has known, 
and feels how much He may justly expect of it. 

Those who are practically ignorant how spiritual men measure 
the guilt of their sins, whether of omission or of commission, are 
apt to attribute hypocrisy to their confessions. I do not doubt, 
there is sometimes that insincerity which is implied in imitation : 
there is occasional morbid exaggeration of feeling : there is, 
perhaps very often, an exaggeration of phrase, suggested by the 
mere vehemence of pure desire. But in the last case, a super- 
cilious pity is ill bestowed. One who (deeply and sincerely) 
sorrows even over abandoned and conquered sin, and over his 
unwilling infirmities, provided that he still maintains a peaceful 
conscience and sense of reconciliation, breathes a freer atmo- 
sphere than his critics. He has learnt to rejoice in a sense of 
Mercy ;— a joy which no one fully tastes, who does not think of 
himself as a pardoned criminal. In proportion to the tenderness 
of his conscience and the depth of his self-condemnation is his 
estimate of the wonder of that Love which has freely forgiven 
him. So full of sacred refreshment is this sense of Mercy, that 
even confession of old sin (if there be no unretrieved wrong to 
others which barbs his self-reproach) becomes an acceptable pain, 
because of the invigorating confidence in God's compassionate 
long suffering, which it nurtures within. Pree Grace is a sound 
delightful to his heart, and wakes up a song of sweet and lowly 
thanksgiving. 

Against coarse external and stupid Pharisaism, no protest is 
here needed : but where a spiritual standard of action is used, 
yet a fixed and arbitrary one which justifies self-satisfaction, a 
man is not necessarily proud and puffed up or overbearing 
towards the more guilty, and it may be very unjust to call him 
Pharisaic. The danger from his self-complacent repose increases, 
no doubt, with the activity of his self-consciousness i and in 



THE SENSE OF SIN. 



63 



any case, so long as it is by approving his own attainments that 
he escapes spiritual conflict, his heart remains comparatively as 
stony ground. No soft dews from heaven can sink in there, no 
roots of penitence strike deep into the soil, no spiritual affections 
bud and bloom forth under the beams of the Sun of Mercy. 
Only after he has felt that nothing but God's immeasurable long- 
suffering can suit his case, will rills of spiritual Love bubble 
forth out of the depths of. his bruised heart. But now, if he does 
not in theory hold Mercy to be limited, yet he feels no need to 
draw largely on it himself. He is forgiven little and he loves 
little. Perhaps he reveres God sincerely, and approves of all 
that is right, holy and lovely : but his affections are not drawn 
out actively after God and His holiness ; and so long, the most 
energetic spirituality does not seem to be possible in him. Never- 
theless, if he is earnest, if he loves truth more than self -justifying, 
an increase of self-consciousness will tend to humility and to 
spiritual growth, not to self-righteousness, pride, stagnation, and 
hardness of heart. 

In the present discussion, regard has hitherto been had to the 
progress of a Soul not deliberately sinful, but falling into an evil 
conscience, with all its discomforts or miseries, while striving with 
more or less honesty in the right direction. But what of one, 
which is stung by the distinct knowledge that it has again and 
again sinned wilfully ; nay, in spite of much light and many reso- 
lutions ? Suppose a man to have lived for weeks and months in 
conscious sin, of course unable to approach God, with soul dark 
and crushed, knowing that he ought to repent, and yet not 
able to repent. But one day, he knows not how or why, (in part, 
it may be, because he has forgotten his worst sins, so that they 
have ceased to trouble him,) his heart is drawn into a strange 
boldness, and rises into some sort of prayer or praise, — as 
perhaps on the occurrence of some happy external event, which 
gives him serenity and gladness. What is to be said of this ? 
Is he very presumptuous ? Should he be told to go and repent 
first ? Is a long course of confession, probation and penance 
essential? This is interesting enough to deserve some discus- 
sion. 

Christian waiters will probably with one voice declare that a 
heathen at his first conversion (and by parity of reasoning, one 
who has all his life hitherto lived without any spiritual religion) 
will be right and wise in ignoring the past course of iniquity as 
an ugly dream. They encourage him to " put off the old man 35 
by a single effort, and "put on the new to spurn with disgust 
and shame, but without distinct and separate acts of repentance, 



64 



THE SOUL : 



the whole scene of darkness and folly ; to believe that God 
freely forgives him everything past, and henceforth to fix his 
eyes and heart on all things that are pure and good and lovely. 
And the wisdom of this is manifest. For no man is made better 
by dwelling on the details of his own iniquity : either it will 
accustom him to evil, or it will horribly discourage him. Dark 
and weak as is one who just begins to breathe a purer air, and to 
raise his spirit towards the Father of spirits, even the fond dream 
that he is now all at once about to pass into blissful purity, 
would scarcely be more than is wanted to stimulate and confirm 
his new life. No one is so ignorant and cruel, as to insist that 
this man's memory shall rake up one by one all his misdeeds, in 
order to make adequate confession of them before God. In fact, 
if possible, he cannot do better, for the present at least, than 
utterly to forget them all. 

Yet, strange to say, this principle is by very many reasoners 
quite reversed, when the case is that of one to whom a personal 
religion is not wholly new. If his resolutions have proved too 
weak for his passions, or, in spite of intellectual convictions that 
he ought to be religious, he has become hardened into neglect of 
God by the occupations of business or calls of pleasure ; such a 
one, it is often imagined, not only has harmed his own soul, but 
has in some sense defrauded the most High. A ledger (as it 
were) is supposed to be kept, in which all his offences are duly 
entered ; and a special process is requisite for obliterating, one 
by one, the items of his gross debt. Confession of each sepa- 
rately to the Searcher of hearts is thought to be the smallest part 
of the necessary ordeal : llomish religion even adds, that the de- 
tails of iniquity must be told out to a fellow-man ; a practice 
which is not only enslaving but grievously corrupting. All this 
however proceeds upon an extravagant misconception of the 
nature of sin, as if it had in itself a permanent existence exterior 
to the soul, and when subdued there, had still to be destroyed 
somewhere else. 

There has indeed been much needless discussion on the ques- 
tion, How we hiotv of the connexion between Repentance and 
Forgiveness ? Neither the intellectual nor the practical answer 
is really obscure. Intellectually, we of necessity hold that the 
highest human perfection is the best type of the divine. Hence, 
where human morality is low and immature, where revenge is 
regarded as a sweet and lawful satisfaction, there men believe 
that God must (in all cases) either punish sin, or receive com- 
pensation if he foregoes vengeance. But with the growth of a 
purer morality in man, this notion of divine revenge is-gradually 



THE SENSE OF SIN. 



65 



modified. Every good man has learnt to forgive, and when the 
offender is penitent, to forgive freely — without punishment or 
retribution : whence the conclusion is inevitable, that God also 
forgives, as soon as sin is repented of. Practically however, it 
is by no means essential that a man should be conscious of this 
train of thought. When he has trusted God sufficiently to dis- 
close his whole heart and cast himself freely on divine grace, he 
has already believed (perhaps unawares) the absolute Mercy of 
God, and he reaps Peace as the fruit of his Faith ; a peace which 
God has given, and which the theories of man cannot take away. 

Much confusion has been introduced by laying down as an 
absolute and necessary moral truth the ambiguous assertion that 
" Guilt ought to be punished :" which is true, if it mean that 
guilt deserves punishment ; false, if it means that to leave it un- 
punished is an immorality. The latter doctrine would make 
Mercy to be a vice. All that Conscience has to depose on the 
subject seems to be summed up in three propositions : 

1. The guilty person, whether penitent or impenitent, deserves* 
punishment. 2. It is right to punish him who is guilty and 
impenitent. 3. It is right to forgive him who is guilty, but 
penitent. Thus there is a sharp distinction between that which 
the offender deserves, and that which the offended ought to in- 
flict. There is no inconsistency at all in the former saying to 
the latter, " I deserve punishment from thee, yet it becometh 
thee rather to show me mercy ; 5? which is in truth necessarily 
and for ever the sentiment of the repenting sinner towards God. 
But to forgive and to punish are not always inconsistent. Some- 
times the punishment must be inflicted for the offender's own 
good, sometimes it comes in the train of cause and effect which 
he has himself originated. He may then have to say, " I will 
bear the judgments of the Lord, because I have sinned against 
Him ;" but this is quite compatible with that sense of spiritual 
forgiveness, which not only expels evil conscience and all boding 
of future wrath, but gives the heart to rejoice in Mercy. 

Human laws indeed ordinarily show no mercy to penitent 
guilt ; but that is obviously because no magistrate can be trusted 
to discriminate real from feigned repentance, and because to 
spare the offender is thought a very small object in comparison 
with deterring others from crime. This cannot mislead us as 
to the divine judgment, when we observe that every pure and 

* This means, — " He ought not to consider himself wronged, if 
punished." Even so, there is a measure of punishment, to exceed which 
would wrong him. Excessive punishment may be a worse evil than the 
offence ; — a large topic for which I have no room. 



66 



THE SOUL : 



loving heart grieves over this severity of human law as a neces- 
sary imperfection. The sword which the magistrate bears is at 
best a coarse and vulgar weapon ; necessary indeed against out« 
ward crime, but, as it scarcely takes cognizance of the degrees 
of temptation and weakness, or knows what Mercy means, no 
one can without absurdity appeal to it as the type of the divine 
administration. No good man would consent to take Public 
Law as the measure of his own mercifulness. In the case of an 
offence committed against ourselves, as soon as we are convinced 
that repentance is sincere, we feel this at once to justify and to 
demand of us full forgiveness ; surely then God pardons man, as 
freely as man pardons his fellow. Nor is this a new discovery. 
The Hebrew Psalmists unhesitatingly believed in the absolute 
forgivingness of God ; nay, the Lord's Prayer, in one petition, 
when rightly translated, teaches, unless I mistake, that God also 
may be expected to forgive, " since even we (men) forgive those 
who trespass against us." The truth seems to be that the desire 
of Vengeance is an instinct implanted in us, in order to check or 
destroy dangerous persons or things ; and in its blind exercise, 
we virtually presume that a man's past conduct is a clue to his 
future. As long as this presumption holds good, the cry for 
Vengeance predominates in the bosom ; but as soon as genuine 
repentance has disconnected the offender's probable* future from 
his past, the new instinct of Mercy rises to supplant that of 
Vengeance. Thus though Punishment is in its origin retro- 
spective, yet it is so only because the retrospect is presumed to 
be premonitory. Punishment is suggested by the past, but its 
aim (in so far as it can be approved) is towards the future. 

There is therefore no reason to doubt, that that mode of pro- 
ceeding which is confessed to be wise on the conversion of a 
profligate heathen, applies equally to all other cases of wilful 
sinners, as soon as any tarn of mind comes, from whatever 
cause. They cannot be too quick in getting out of the evil 
feelings and into holier thoughts and aspirations. The great dif- 
ficulty is to do this at all : let not artificial impediments be 
superadded, by prescribing a routine of confession and of bar- 

* Hence the increased difficulty of forgiving an offence repeated after 
(apparent) repentance ; because we lose our confidence in the assump- 
tion, that such repentance promises a different future. 

Observe also, that though he who punishes finds his justification in the 
Past, yet he has no means of fixing the sufficient amount of punishment 
but by looking on to the Future ; for (in spite of the remark in Note to 
p. 65) we have no true common measure of Guilt and Punishment. 
Hence when Punishment is not wanted either for Prevention or for Prefor- 
mation, it vanishes of itself. 



THE SENSE OF SIN. 



C7 



gaining for forgiveness. Does the anxious moralist insist that 
suffering for our sins is essential to permanent amendment ? 
does he demand Self-Condemnation and Self-Abhorrenee as a 
pledge of sincerity ? Let him so do it, as to awaken Contrition 
with hope, not Eemorse with despair. To hate the past self is 
good, to hate the present self is a deadly thing. Whoever hates 
himself hates God also. The great, the imminent danger is, 
that the soul which begins to turn once more towards God, 
should exaggerate the difficulties in the way of its restoration : 
and often, nothing can be happier, than if in a fit of unrea- 
soning enthusiasm it suddenly conceive itself to be the special 
object of divine favour. Let the man but once come really 
under a sense of God's unchangeable complacency, and he will 
then soon mourn bitterly enough for his sins, and profitably to 
himself. " Thou shalt be loathsome in thine own eyes, when 
I am pacified with thee for all that thou hast done." 

Indeed, we may add, that as human guilt is not determined 
by the character of outward acts, but by the hardness of heart 
which accompanies them ; so this hardness is by nothing so 
truly measured, as by the mode in which Mercy affects the soul. * 
When violent or vicious men are melted into apparent sorrow 
for their sins by the thought that there is mercy even for them, 
we discern that they are not hopelessly hardened, even if the depth 
of their repentance is still doubtful ; and in proportion as our 
opinion of their hardness of heart is lightened, so is our opinion 
of the intensity of guilt which their actual state implies. But 
the most dreadful consequence of wilful sin, — sin against moral 
and spiritual light, — is this very thing, that it palsies the heart 
against believing and accepting Mercy. Apathy and callousness 
are the fatal symptoms, in comparison with which a too great rea- 
diness to appropriate divine forgiveness to oneself must be judged 
a smaller evil. There always indeed have been, and there always 
will be, those who want to be made comfortable in their sins. 
No severity of doctrine will certainly thwart the self-complacency 
of such ; for their deficiency is in depth of conscience and self- 
knowledge. But it need not on that account be feared that the 
doctrine of Free Grace to sinners may make sin appear a light 
matter to one whose conscience is really affected : he will not in- 
deed measure his sin by the outward acts, and may condemn 
himself less, for those whi. , world condemns beyond com- 
parison more. But for wilful sin - - committed against moral 
light, after tasting mercy, — though it seem small to others, no 
true penitent (I conceive) ever forgives him but always car- 
ries a sore spot on his soul, and is secretly hum Lin mature or 



68 



THE SOUL. 



declining age even for sins of youth. Eternally does lie cry to 
God against himself, " I deserve thy wrath;" and this is a bit- 
terness, which probably no sense of pardon and reconciliation 
entirely removes. 

The principles which have been here laid down, serve to ex- 
plain the recovery of men from deplorable hardness or remorse, 
under the influence of doctrine commonly esteemed fanatical, but 
practically proved to be far more powerful to convert and rescue 
than any wisdom of the mere moralist. The preacher anxiously 
warns the sinner not to think that he must make himself good 
and righteous before he comes to Christ : but let him "come as 
he is, ragged, wretched, filthy, with all his sins about him let 
him believe that he is accepted, and he shall instantly be made 
whole; he shall be received with joy, as the prodigal son return- 
ing : a ring shall be placed on his hand and shoes on his feet : 
the angels shall be glad because of him : he shall be justified in 
the midst of all his ungodliness, and his Faith shall be counted 
as Righteousness. — Undoubtedly if the hearer imagines that this 
is some process for enabling kirn to continue in sin without evil 
consequences, it is a ghastly delusion; but if he accepts it as a 
method of freeing Mm from the power of inward sin, as well as 
from all farther spiritual consequences, it is precisely the thing 
needed for his case. His faith or his credulity or his enthusiasm 
(whichever men may choose to call it) grasps at the idea, that, in 
spite of all that has passed, he may yet live a purer and a better 
life under the smile of God ; and the fact of his grasping at it 
attests the birth of higher desires, which forthwith become 
cultivated by exercise and (in happy instances) are ultimately 
triumphant. 

There is no single thing which more strikes me as indicating a 
defective philosophy current concerning the Soul, than the incre- 
dulity and contempt which is cast upon sudden conversions. 
Sudden political revolutions are never treated as incredible or 
marvellous. It is readily understood that in a State two or three 
different powers are struggling together with independent force ; 
and often with alternate success. At last a party which was de- 
pressed rises in sudden might, deposes that which held the chief 
power, and assumes the helm. 

Many moralizers seem not to be aware, that, similarly, in the 
narrow compass of one man's bosom two or three powers are 
often striving together for mastery. Rather they know of nothing 
but " Reason and Passion;' 5 and as Reason acts gently and 
very steadily, and uiiiy Passion by violent impulse, they can 
understand indeed that a man may fall into dire sin all in a 



THE SENSE OF SIN. 



69 



moment, but not Low he can rise out of it all in a moment. 
This is because they know nothing of the forces of the Soul, 
which are in fact true Passions themselves. Nor only so ; 
but just as in Political, so too in Spiritual conflict, any great 
abuse of power by one party is apt to damage its cause, and irri- 
tate the opponents into vehement exertion : hence many a tyrant 
and many a dynasty has been ejected in consequence of some 
wanton and atrocious deed. Exactly in the same way is the 
paradox to be explained, (which is a fact, whether people choose 
to be scandalized at it or not,) that the commission of some 
unusually great sin has been known to lead to a change of the 
whole character for the better ; in fact, to a marked spiritual con- 
version. It needs no great insight into the soul to understand 
the principle of such things, A man of impulsive passion and 
moderately strong will, is perhaps ordinarily correct enough to 
satisfy his conscience; and if now and then carried a little beyond 
bounds, he yet manages to keep up a good opinion of himself. 
But if his passions on some day run out to fearful riot, his self- 
complacency is mortified, his conscience is deeply stirred, his 
soul (for the first time perhaps) is called into activity : a general 
insurrection of the whole man takes place against the tyrannous 
usurpers ; and, though beforehand the issue of such a struggle 
cannot be foreseen, no one who has even a feeble knowledge of 
God's power in the soul will be incredulous about its ever ending 
victoriously. Moralists perhaps think, that even if true, such a 
thing is dangerous to tell, lest any should trust to what he calls 
his " good luck," and sin boldly in the hope that he will be saved 
from sin at last. One however who argues thus with himself, 
does not hope (for he does not wish) to be saved from sin, but 
only from its consequences. No system of doctrine, true or false, 
will in itself avail to give to such a person a new heart, and make 
him feel that there is evil in the sin itself, even if the usual 
consequences be thwarted. The profligate will never want 
excuses for sin ; but they are not the persons to be most con- 
sidered, even if to hide facts would do them any good. Our 
business is, if possible, to understand aright both the weakness 
and the power of the soul; and what throws light on it, must 
not be suppressed for prudery and decorum and fancied expe- 
diency. 

But perhaps there is another illusion. It is alledged that every 
evil deed goes to establish a Habit, and thereby weakens the 
moral principle : hence that a sin should be the antecedent of a 
conversion, is thought to be self-contradictory. But though a 
series of deeds committed not under strong passion make a habit, 



70 



THE SOUL : 



it is not true of a single deed of passion. A child that slaps its 
nurse with little or no provocation and is not checked, will pro- 
bably gain a habit of ill using her : but a boy who in sudden 
passion should strike his mother violently, having never done 
anything of the sort before, would probably be horror-smitten 
at his own deed, be melted into tears, and become far more 
affectionate and dutiful than previously. Exactly so, in the 
ups and downs of an early struggling spiritual life, when 
powerful passions sway the man both ways, it is certain that a 
wilful sin, by the agony which it causes to the soul, may act like 
an arrow shot in a sleeping lion, who springs at once furiously on 
his enemy, and dashes him to the ground, though sore wounded 
himself. For it is not more true that the flesh lusteth against 
the spirit, than that the spirit lusteth against the flesh; and when 
awakened to danger and its mettle roused, the spirit is by far the 
mightier, as that needs must be, which is in contact with God. 
Hence also man is ennobled, not by weakening his lower nature, 
but by unfolding and strengthening his higher.* It is absolutely 
impossible to turn the above, by any legitimate argument, to an 
immoral purpose. Tor if a person deliberately said, " I will sin, 
in order so to move my soul, 55 he would manifest a state of soul 
which could not be so moved. Only full life can suffer keenly ; 
and this man has no life. 

In the farther progress of the soul, Habit becomes of increasing 
value ; but if in the early stage the views of mere moralists were 
true, its prospects would be sad indeed : nor could it possibly 
contend against the passions. On the contrary, its great forces 
are all impulsive, and capable of being very intense. St. Paul, 
who knew something of them, scruples not to call them (in the 
soul) the same mighty power of God, as raised Christ from the 
grave to the highest heaven. And certainly, when he was in- 
viting men to sacrifice all earthly prospects for a heavenly hope, 
nothing short of an energetic inward spirit which they felt to be 
of God, could possibly animate them to accept such proposals. 
Hence too he calls the Spirit within them " the earnest 55 of their 
future inheritance. 

But indeed the remark may be made on all intuitive impres- 
sions, — that they are at first sudden and impulsive. The beauty 
of a scene, of a statue, of a human face, strikes us with impetus. 

* This is only one point of the absurdity involved in Fasting in order 
to weaken the passions. But in fact I believe it does not weaken them, 
even temporarily, to any spiritual purpose ; for sin is in the mind, not in 
the body. Irritability, with other pettishness, is confessedly increased by 
this Babylonish practice. 



THE SENSE OF SIN. 



71 



Not that we discern it always at first sight : we may have needed 
some familiarity with it before w T e see it in the right position and 
gather up into a single whole that on which the effect depends ; 
but at last we catch it all in a moment, and perhaps wonder why 
it never so affected us before. In modern England indeed the 
most powerful love which man feels for woman is founded, not 
on mere beauty, but on the internal character ; and as this is not 
brought out and discerned in a moment, Englishmen do not in 
general fall in love very suddenly. But in countries where 
women are secluded, where in consequence beauty is rarely seen 
and free courtship is impossible; — all the accounts which we 
read, of men falling in love with beautiful maidens, represent it 
as so sudden and violent, as to strike us with incredulity and 
laughter. We justly regard this as a less advanced, a more 
puerile stage of human nature ; yet it is not a less instructive 
illustration of the mode in which intuition affects the soul. 

The thing to be desired undoubtedly is, such a constant pre- 
sence of God's Spirit with our spirit, that there may be no more 
" variableness or shadow of turning" in us than in Him ; that 
our hearts maybe altars, whence the smoke of incense perpetually 
rises to heaven ; that our Wills may be animated by a power 
uniformly equal to their task, so that Duty may be nothing but 
healthy exercise, without labouring or groaning. But if this is 
not yet attained, if we get into a stagnant lethargic atmosphere, 
which threatens to benumb us, we must be thankful for an occa- 
sional healthful typhoon, and not cavil that it is not a trade-wind. 
Individual character and circumstances of temptation differ so 
much, and false theories so derange the proper progress of things, 
that it is delusive to assert any result to be generally true ; but it 
seems impossible to doubt that in a healthy state, the internal 
life of spiritual men tends to become more and more tranquil, 
until the observer can detect no disturbances. Happy are those, 
to whom Habit gives that steadiness which the moralist admires, 
without that languor which the spiritualist dreads. 

If it appear that Selfishness is the most unmanageable disease 
in spirituals, (since it is a virtual death of the Soul, when com- 
plete,) and that a pure Enthusiasm is its proper antagonist, a 
cold nature would seem to be the least hopeful soil for spiritual 
growth. The passionate temperament (which is however not to 
be judged of by superficial display) generally gives greater depth 
and power of life, with more capacity of sorrcw and joy, though 
also, especially if_the original moral training been neglected, 
far greater danger of sudden sin and public scandal. And here 
I am led to avow, that the Churches of England, and that 



72 



THE SOUL : 



decorous part of society to which they set the tone, appear to 
take a less true and less Christian view of the relative enormity 
of sins, than the common heart of the world takes. The world 
broadly distinguishes sins of selfishness and malignity as unbear- 
able, and imposes on them many opprobrious epithets, — mean, 
sneaking, rascally, &c. : and these are precisely the sins which 
of all indicate that a man has no stamp of the Infinite Spirit 
upon him. But sins of passion, — not so indulged as to injure 
or betray others, — the world treats very mildly : and these, 
though of course implying the temporary conquest of the soul by 
baser impulses, yet by no means denote the total absence of 
God's Spirit, if the sins have been unpremeditated or the passion 
violent. Mean and griping conduct, especially if habitual, is a 
far worse spiritual sin than a bout of drunkenness ; yet a Church 
will animadvert on the latter and dares not touch the former : 
— probably because it is forced, like the Law of the land, to act- 
by rules capable of strict definition. Thus we get the astonish- 
ing result, that while the Church (in its treatment of transgressors) 
typifies the Law, the World comes nearer to the Gospel ! As 
the Publicans and harlots were nearer to the kingdom of God 
than the Pharisees, so were Byron and Shelley than many a 
punctual reciter of creeds : and this, the world well knows, but 
the Churches have no mouth to declare. Out of the above 
grow moral difficulties concerning all church discipline whatever, 
which, I confess, now seem to me of a most unmanageable kind. 

It is time to sum up this Chapter. Its subject has been, the 
struggle of the soul to get and keep peace with God, and to 
conquer sin. Peace is no mere matter of comfort, but essential 
for sanctification : hence it is impossible to overrate its im- 
portance. If it is obtained and kept, there is indeed grief, pain, 
mortification, humiliation, in finding that our Affections do not 
keep pace with our Will ; yet a copious dash of this sort of 
humiliation seems to be beneficial, implying, as it generally does, 
high aspirations rather than very low performances. The man 
who, after being crushed under a sense of sin, has been healed 
by God, is sore no longer, yet permanently tender ; — a tender- 
ness felt through his whole spiritual and moral nature : hence he 
is mild in his judgments of others, while severe on himself. He 
has also probably much contentment and balance of soul, not 
only infused by a cheerful sense of the mild light of God, under 
which he lives, but also as he feels himself unworthy of all his 
enjoyments : thus he tastes anew sweetness in the common goods 
of life. To be honoured by men pains him ; to be disesteemed 
by those who are not spiritual, does not trouble him, — except in 



THE SENSE OF SIN. 



73 



regard to that outward innocence, of which common men are 
excellent judges. And while he has thus learned to be abased, 
he has in some degree learned also how to abound. If new 
earthly wealth and grandeur were to flow in upon him, they 
would no doubt be a temptation ; yet his previous discipline 
would above all things aid him to bear them. To endure afflic- 
tion and sorrow, such sorrow especially as wrings the tender 
affections, he is perhaps not yet armed ; — indeed, who is ?— still, 
should such trials come, they will probably tend to the perfecting 
of his spirit, by opening new doors of access to God. Meanwhile, 
if such mellow fruits of righteousness as have been named, are 
borne by his having been painfully exercised, he will not think 
that the time of conflict was thrown away. God does not expose 
all to the very same trials, and let not us cramp all men to one 
form ; but He leads us through ways that we know not, dark and 
various, until by his mercy, having become guileless before Him, 
we dwell with Him, and are satisfied by the sight of Him. 
Whoso has gained the harbour, needs not care about the course. 
To have had to undergo spiritual conflict through ignorance or 
through perversity, is certainly not in itself matter of congratu- 
lation : yet it may be a process not without positive advantages 
for us, if we are called on to comfort men in spiritual sorrow " by 
the comfort wherewith we ourselves were comforted of God." 
But, conflict or no conflict, matters not, if the heart has learnt to 
hate sin and rejoice in mercy. Then faithful resolute energetic 
souls do not stay in simple peace and moral tranquillity ; they 
soar into a higher blessedness, and mingle in some upper part of 
the heaven-streaming current with those who are about to be 
described in the next Chapter. 



Note 1, referred to in page 45. 

At the request of some readers of my earlier editions, I here annex a 
literal translation of Cleanthes's Hymn to Jupiter, 

Almighty alway ! many-nam'd ! 

most glorious of the deathless! 
Jove, primal spring of nature, who 

with Law directest all things ! 
Hail ! for to bow salute to Thee, 

to every man is holy. 
For we from Thee an offspring are, 

to whom, alone of mortals 
That live and move along the Earth, 

the Mimic Voice is granted: 
Therefore to Thee I hymns will sing, 

and alway chant thy greatness. 
£ 



THE SOUL : 



Subject to Thee is yonder Sky, 

which round the Earth for ever 
Majestic rolls at Thy command, 

and gladly feels Thy guidance. 
So mighty is the weapon, clench'd 

within Thy hands unconquer'd, 
The double-edg'd and fiery bolt 

of ever living lightning. 
"For Nature through her every part 

beneath its impulse shudders, 
Whereby the universal Schcrae * 

Thou guidest, which, through all things 
Proceeding, intermingles deep 

with greater lights and smaller. 
When Thou so vast in essence art* 

A king supreme for ever, 

3fc 

Nor upon Earth is any work 

done without Thee, O Spirit ! 
Nor at the other's utmost height 

divine, nor in the Ocean, 
Save whatsoe'er the infatuate 

work out from hearts of evil. 
But Thou by wisdom knowest well 

to render Odd things even ; 
Thou orderest Disorder, and 

th' Unlovely lovely makest. 
For so hast Thou in one combin'd 

the noble with the baser, 
That of the Whole a single Scheme* 

arises, everlasting, 
Which men neglect and overlook, 

as many as are evil : 
Unhappy ! who good things to get 

are evermore desiring, 
While to the common Law of Gcd 

Nor eyes nor ears they open ; 
Obedient to which, they might 

good life enjoy with wisdom. 
But they, in guise unseemly, rush 

this way and that, at random ; 
One part, in glory's chase engag'd 

with ill- contending passicn, 
Some, searching every path of gain, 

of comeliness forgetful, 
Others on soft indulgence bent 

and on the body's pleasure, 
While things right contrary to these 

their proper action hastens. 

But, Jove all-bounteous! who, in clouds 
enwrapt, the lightning wie-ldest; 

* The word is Logos,-— reason ? system ? 



THE SENSE OF SIN. 



75 



Mayst thou from baneful Ignorance 

the race of men deliver ! 
This, Father ! scatter from the soul, 

and grant that we the wisdom 
May reach, in confidence of which 

thou justly guidest all things ; 
That we, by Thee in honour set, 

with honour may repay Thee, 
Raising to all thy works a hymn 

perpetual ; as beseemeth 
A mortal soul : since neither man 

nor god has higher glory, 
Than rightfully to celebrate 

Eternal Law all-ruling. 

Cleanthes was born about B.C. 300, and lived 80 year3. 



Note 2, referred to in page 53. 

No apology is needed for assuming that the advocates of what is called 
Orthodoxy decline to reconcile their doctrines with one another, accord- 
ing to the common principles of Logic. They generally say that the 
truths hinted at (and not fully stated) in their propositions, transcend 
Logic, and mast not be submitted to that ordeal. This, it seems to me, 
would he prima facie admissible, if these propositions were arrived at not 
by logical processes, but by direct discernment. 

In the present argument, I am not concerned to censure the self-con- 
tradictoriness of any creeds, except so far as it hurts spirituality. But it 
appears insane to deny, that it is self- contradictory to call Jesus simul- 
taneously omniscient and advancing in wisdom, omnipotent and needing 
support, infinite and finite : and when people say that they believe he is 
at once God and Man, they deceive themselves. What they really believe 
is this ; that he was once Man, and is now God. 

The use and abuse of Logic in religious inquiry is a topic large enough 
to fill a treatise. As long as religious teachers have to establish by 
argument the Infallibility of the Scriptures or of something which they 
call " the Church," it is a ludicrous absurdity in them to affect that their 
results are invulnerable to logical attack. If one result contradicts 
another, it is evident that in the course of their long arguments they 
have made some mistake. It is for them, not for us, to find out where : 
and if they declaim against Logic, they do but declaim against themselves. 

Widely different is it, when the internal faculties discern separately 
each of two truths, which, when stated in words, seem to be logically in- 
consistent. If they are really so, it will merely show that we have not 
successfully interpreted into words the impressions made on our inward 
sense, and that some modification of one or other statement is needed. 
But I confess that this is with me an imaginary case. I know no instances 
of such apparent collision, except between the Soul (or Conscience) and 
the Understanding. 

The most startling, because the newest, extravagance in England, is the 
phenomenon of educated and acute men, — professors of Tri-unitarian and 
even of Romish orthodoxy, — who refuse to allow their own creed to be 
subjected to the test of logical self- consistency, and yet assail all other 

E 2 



THE SOUL. 



creeds with this weapon. J forsooth, if I discern with about equal dis- 
tinctness two truths which my critic thinks inconsistent, / must choose 
between them, and repudiate one of the two, or he will brand me as 
illogical! Let him make (or at least believe) his own creed logical, 
before he throws this stone at others. 

All absolute truth is self- consistent : hence it is unquestionable that 
we are somewhere in error, if we are entangled in real inconsistency. 
Human truth however is not Absolute, but only Approximate ; too 
valuable to throw away, though not perfect : and to detect inconsistency 
does not in itself warn us where the error lies, and what sort of correc- 
tion our propositions need. Much and patient inquiry is often essential 
to find this out ; and meanwhile we are right in holding (though with 
diffidence and charity) to a system of propositions, which, we are conscious, 
involve some inconsistency. To throw away one of them at random, in 
order to secure agreement in those that remain, would be doltish. Yet 
this is what those virtually advise, who preach up internal Consistency as 
the grand virtue of a religious system. Consistent Truth is perfection ; 
but Consistent Error would be far worse than Inconsistency. For a 
believer in Transubstantiation and in the pseudo-Athanasian Creed to 
enforce upon others, as at any rate essential, a logical coherence in their 
intellectual faith, shows either dense self-ignorance or gross untruthfulness. 



CHAPTER IV. 



SENSE OF PERSONAL RELATION TO GOD. 



§ 1. REPLY TO AN OBJECTION. 

Before proceeding to the real subject of this Chapter, it may 
be well to notice an objection. Some will say, that in all spiritual 
action, the Soul itself is the only agent, and that the idea of God 
acting upon it, is a mere dream : that it has, no doubt, its own 
feelings ; but these feelings do not point to anything that goes on 
in the mind of God, which is essentially unchangeable towards us. 

My general reply is, that I do not write as a metaphysician, or 
pretend to any but a popular phraseology. Time may disclose 
Laws in the actings of God towards the Soul ; nay, none imagine 
that he acts capriciously, except a remnant of a school which veils 
caprice under the word sovereignty. There can be no objection 
to Science exploring spiritual action with purely scientific ends, 
provided that it ascertain the popular facts correctly on which it 
is to refine. But this proviso includes, first, that the men of 
science shall treat with tender thoughtfulness the facts alledged 
by the unscientific men who have felt them ; and shall cease to 
shower on them vague phrases of contempt, as mysticism, fana- 
ticism, &c. ; secondly, that the would-be scientific classifier of 
facts shall not strangle the facts in their birth. Now this is what 
those are trying to do, who lay down, that a man is to pray for 
spiritual benefit, not expecting that God will deign to notice 
him, — only because it is a mode of influencing his own heart. 
This would turn us into feeble hypocrites. What ! can a man go, 
as if before God, and say, — " O God, I ask Thee to subdue this 
or that evil desire, knowing that Thou nearest not, but hoping 
that by this conscious fiction I shall call my own soul into action" ? 
This certainly is foolishness. No spiritual facts at all will be left 
for the man of science, if we commence thus. 



78 



THE SOUL : 



It is to me axiomatic, that man can no more fully compre- 
hend the mind of God, than a dog that of his master. Our 
clearest notions must be rude outlines : our vocabulary is all one 
of transference, and of course enormously vague : yet he who, in 
anxiety for scientific accuracy, refuses to become experimentally 
acquainted with the facts, is the last man tG succeed in heighten- 
ing our conceptions or perfecting our phraseology. Meanwhile, 
as a dog lives on his master's smile, and rejoices, so is it fit thai 
we should live on the smile of God, though knowing only the 
outer edge of His heart and mind. 

"But," (will the man of science say?) "it is all well and 
happy for you to believe that God hears your prayer : perhaps I 
wish I could believe it too ; but unfortunately I cannot : you 
offer me no proof. 53 But what sort of proof could satisfy him ? 
If he say — "None; 55 this would imply that there is an essential 
absurdity in the case ; but we must then call on him to point out 
the absurdity ; since we do not see it. But if he admit that the 
thing is not in itself absurd and self-contradictory, then, it seems 
to me, he cannot ask any other proof, than exactly that which 
abounds : viz. the unanimous testimony of spiritual persons to the 
efficacy of prayer. He may reply : " Tes, that is the heart 
acting on itself ; 55 but he might deal exactly in the same way 
with the evidence of sense. Perhaps there is no outer world, and 
our internal sensations are the universe ! Syllogistic proof of an 
outer world will never be gained, nor yet syllogistic proof that a 
God exists or listens to prayer. 

We well know that there are persons, who say that substance 
and matter are illusive terms ; and that a substance is nothing but 
a congeries of forces, coherent and repulsive. It may be so ; but 
we should not attain greater accuracy by expunging the two 
words from our vocabulary. Indeed, the philosopher who so cor- 
rects us, has, after all, no more definite idea of the reality than the 
vulgar have. He cannot conceive of one centre of immaterial 
forces pushing away another centre of immaterial forces. The 
imagination wants something material for a force to push against. 
The vulgar mode of conception and speech may be inaccurate ; 
but, as also in spiritual matters, it is the best we can get. Not 
by subtlety of thought, but by specific sense, do we gain any 
acquaintance with the realities of things : and the Soul is the 
specific sense in which we come into contact with God. Let us 
not deal more slightingly with its testimony, than with that of 
the Touch or the Taste. 

The active part of man consists of powerful instincts. Some 
are gentle and continuous, others violent and short - } some baser 5 



SENSE OF PERSONAL RELATION TO GOD. 79 

some nobler ; all necessary. A moral control over them all is 
desirable ; and by all means let any vagaries of the Soul (as in 
all fanatical religion) be severely checked by our moral principle. 
With this limitation, the instincts have an inherent right to exist 
and to act ; and the perfection of man depends on their har- 
monious energy. As operating alike on all ages, perhaps the 
instinct which seeks after God and the Infinite is the most power- 
ful in man. Let us follow out this great and glorious tendency. 
Let us give free play to our nature, without fear of the critics : 
we shall get holiness, peace and joy ; and may haply bequeath 
facts for some future man of science. If we drink the heavenly 
nectar ourselves, others may analyze our juices when we are dead. 

The objection here considered, comes ill from a moralist who 
believes the originating power of the human Will : for he can no 
more prove that Will is not a mere necessary result of circum- 
stances unknown or uncontrollable to us, than I can prove that 
it is God's influence and not my own which I feel within. But 
we refuse to surrender to the Necessarian our instinctive belief in 
a self-determining Will, because we cannot act wisely and well 
except by adopting the belief : for if there be no such Will in us, 
it is still useful for practice to believe that there is ; and the man 
who most knows the Truth, is then most likely to act foolishly !* 
This is so intense a paradox, as to confirm most people in their 
conviction that the hypothesis is false, or that there is a self- 
moving Will in each of us. — Now every word of this argument 
equally applies to the belief that God acts upon the soul, when 
the soul approaches Him. The objector then ought in con- 
sistency to become a Necessarian, — to deny the propriety of 
praising or blaming, to treat self-reproof as ridiculous, and cut 
away the springs of moral as well as spiritual life. Perhaps, if 
he will be logical, he ought farther to be an Atheist ; for, as in- 
sisted in • the First Chapter, if we know nothing of Will in our- 
selves, it does not appear how we know anything of it in the 
Universe. Thus, the objection treated is frivolous, unless it 
means to destroy both Morals and Keligion entirely. 

If it be admitted that in the Infinite One there dwell (what 
we may approximately call) Designs, Desires, Affections ; then 
surely all his creatures who also have affections and minds 
capable of discerning Him, may both love and be loved by Him. 
That we ought to revere Him, is as trustworthy a moral judg- 
ment as any other, as soon as His existence is discerned. That 
he perceives and approves onr revering Him, is a judgment 



* See the Introductory Remarks, No. 9, for farther elucidation. 



80 



THE SOUL : 



equally inevitable. But the man who at the same moment that he 
adores* perceives that his adoration is perceived and is acceptable, 
has already begun an intercourse with God. Two moral beings 
cannot come into such intercourse, without the commencement 
of a new moral relation; not though the inequality between 
them be infinite. Nor does it avail to dwell on our littleness as 
any objection : the chasm is still infinite, between the highest 
creature and the Creator. But in fact, this infinite disparity is 
just the thing essential to the relation and characteristic of it. 

§ 2. LOVES OF THE SOUL. 

Human characters have often been distributed into two great 
classes, which may be called masculine and feminine. In the 
masculine, are stronger and coarser passions, self-confidence 
somewhat overbearing, more promptitude to act and more ver- 
satile energy, deeper conscience and more prominence of the 
idea of Duty, high ambition to achieve Eight ; warm and rich 
love, of gushing impetuosity. In the feminine, are pure and 
gentle instincts ; strength more passive than active ; slowness to 
act, except when affection moves ; a heart that guides to Duty 
and to Eight, but thinking of it not as Duty and as Eight but 
as that which is lovely ; finally, a love which is tender, trans- 
parent, and steady. Of course there may be intermediate cha- 
racters. Yet if we contrast the two more concisely, thus : the 
former, (partly from Ambition and partly from the activity of 
the Conscience,) is impelled to action before the affections are 
fully ready for it : the latter is little moved by a sense of Duty, 
and is satisfied not to act until impelled by Affection : then the 
two characters exclude one another. And this is perhaps a 
view suitable to our present purpose. 

Where Conscience predominates, the struggles described in 
the preceding Chapter may be apprehended ; especially if to this 
be added an ardent ambitious nature. Exactly in such natures 
other passions also are apt to be strong : hence the man is a 
bundle of forces not yet in harmony : and the harmonizing of them 
is generally attempted by direct conflict, before Love comes in to 
reconcile them. The more feminine character probably avoids 
struggle, not by any strength of love, but by the unformed state 
of the conscience and delicacy of the passions : for powerful love 
to God can in very rare instances be developed so early as to 
anticipate conflict. Many persons of masculine soul, neverthe- 
less, by severe sorrows, especially from the deaths of those whom 
they love, are in great measure moulded into the feminine type j 



SENSE OF PERSONAL RELATION TO GOD. 



81 



and possibly this is the most perfect character. But at present 
I confine myself to the other. 

There are those of amiable natures and soft affections, perhaps 
also very susceptible to natural beauty, who appear to approach 
religion altogether on its sunny side. They see God, not as a 
strict Judge, not as a Glorious Potentate ; but as the animating 
Spirit of a beautiful harmonious world, Beneficent and Kind, 
Merciful as well as Pure. The same characters generally have 
no metaphysical tendencies : they do not look back into them- 
selves. Hence they are not distressed by their own imper- 
fections : yet it would be absurd to call them self-righteous ; 
for they hardly think of themselves at all. This childlike qua- 
lity of their nature makes the opening of religion very happy to 
thern : for they no more shrink from God, than a child from an 
emperor, before whom the parent trembles : in fact, they have no 
vivid conception of any of the qualities in which the severer 
Majesty of God consists. He is to them the impersonation of 
Kindness and Beauty. They read his character, not in the dis- 
ordered moral world of man, but in romantic and harmonious 
nature. Of human sin they know perhaps little in their own 
hearts and not very much in the world ; and human suffering- 
does but melt them to tenderness. Thus, when they approach 
God, no inward disturbance ensues ; and without being as yet 
spiritual, they have a certain complacency and perhaps romantic 
sense of excitement in their simple worship. 

It is not by a lucky accident that their early course is so 
tranquil. It arises out of the fact that their crude views of God 
are really more true than those of the opposite character. He 
is not a stern Judge, exacting every tittle of some law from us. 
There is nothing in Him to terrify the simple-minded. He does 
not act towards us (spiritually) by generalizations which may 
omit our individual case, but his perfection consists in dealing 
with each case by itself as if there were no others. In short, 
only the primitive ruder notion concerning Him is the stern one ; 
that of the riper spirituality testifies to his infinite Love. Now 
it deserves remark, that, quite in accordance with this, women 
come more easily to pure religion than men. In fact, men are 
accustomed to deal with affairs of life on a great scale, where 
(by reason of our mental infirmity) fixed general rules are 
essential : hence come men's notions of abstract Justice, in 
which the Judge is forced to sacrifice his personal feelings to 
some law external to himself; an idea which they erroneously 
transfer to God. But women act in detail, and judge of each 
case for itself and by their own feelings. So again ; all moral rules 

E 5 



82 



THE SOUL: 



are a generalization ; hence Conscience, which bids us observe 
such rules, implies generalization : but women do not generalize 
much; they rather seize on particulars. Therefore they are 
less liable to be tormented by a Conscience, which (on some 
abstract principle) lays more on them than their affections 
can bear. But chiefly, it is important,^ that men deal much 
with their equals, and have to stand out for their rights; 
hence the sharpness with which the idea of Justice and Eight is 
stamped upon them. But women are chiefly concerned with un- 
equals ; with a husband above them and children beneath them ; 
and in younger age of course equally so. Thus affectionate 
obedience and tender mercy are prominent with them ; and they 
carry these sentiments into their religious relations. Moreover as 
young women are not subject to passion in the same coarse forms 
as young men, their temptations are probably weaker, they wound 
their own consciences less, and their religious course is far 
smoother. On the whole, we may well admire the instinct, which 
made the old Germans regard Woman as penetrating nearer to 
the mind of God than Man does. 

That none can enter the kingdom of heaven, without becoming 
a little Child, — guileless and simple-minded, is a sentiment long 
well known. But behind and after this there is a mystery, re- 
vealed to but few, which thou, oh Reader, must take to heart. 
Namely, if thy Soul is to go on into higher spiritual blessedness, 
it must become a Woman ; yes, however manly thou be among 
men. It must learn to love being dependent ; and must lean on 
God not solely from distress or alarm, but because it does not 
like independence or loneliness. It must not have recourse to 
Him merely as to a friend in need, under the strain of duty, the 
battering of afSiction and the failure of human sympathy ; but 
it must press towards Him when there is no need. It must 
love to pour out its thoughts to Him, for the pleasure of pour- 
ing them out. It must utterly abandon the idea of having 
either Rights or Liberty as against God, and will then instinc- 
tively know that God claims no Rights against it, but in all his 
direct dealings with it is thinking solely of its individual wel- 
fare, as much as if it were the only creature in the universe. 
Though all the Scribes and Pharisees of Christendom should 
assert it, believe not, oh Reader, that God keeps any spiritual 
scores against thee. It was a strong-minded man, deeply versed 
in human nature, but as painfully dark concerning the Divine, 
who said : The gods care to avenge, but care not to save.* 
Those were Pagan and external gods. But our inward and 
* Tacitus, Histor. i. 3. 



SENSE OF PERSONAL RELATION TO GOD. 



S3 



spiritual God cares not to avenge, and cares only to save : and to 
err concerning this, would make us less holy, as well as less 
happy. Farther, the soul must learn to follow her own instincts 
more ; to deal with every case for itself, and enact no artificial 
generalizations ; to think, not what she may do without sin, but 
what best harmonizes with her own delicacies ; so that the law 
of the Spirit within her may set her free from, by raising her above, 
the law of sin and of death, Lastly, she must change that Jewish 
precept, " Thou shalt love the Lord" into another : " Thou 
mayst love thy Lord. 53 

But those gentle souls which are drawn so quietly towards 
God, by no means go without their share of sorrow, only it seems 
to take a different form. It is not that an evil conscience stings 
them, that Duty works them hard, and their Affections fail : but 
they doubt whether they may suppose that there is any definite rela- 
tion at all between them and the Infinite God. God is hitherto 
to the Soul as a pleasing poetical dream : He has not (as in the 
case described in the Third Chapter) been felt in the Conscience, 
first as one painfully judging the heart, and then as subduing it ; 
and He is in fact still a mere external God to the worshipper. 
"While this is the case, there is Sentiment, but not as yet 
Spirituality ; and though the religion is not formal and stiff, but 
poetical and free, still the soul can have no active life. But from 
this very circumstance a sense of vacuity arises. One who begins 
to realize God's majestic beauty and eternity, and feels in con- 
trast how little and transitory man is, how dependent and 
feeble, — longs to lean upon him for support. But He is outside 
of the heart, like a beautiful sunset, and seems to have nothing 
to do with it ; there is no getting into contact with Him, to press 
against Him. — Yet where rather should the weak rest than on 
the Strong, the creature of a day than on the Eternal, the im- 
perfect than on the centre of perfection ? And where else should 
God dwell than in the human heart ? for if God is in the uni- 
verse, among things inanimate and unmoral, how much more 
ought He to dwell with our souls ! and they too seem to be in- 
finite in their cravings : who but He can satisfy them ? Thus a 
restless instinct agitates the soul, guiding it dimly to feel, that it 
was made for some definite but unknown relation towards God. 
The sense of emptiness increases to positive uneasiness, until 
there is an inward yearning, if not shaped in words, yet in sub- 
stance not alien from that ancient strain, — " As the hart panteth 
after the water-brooks, so panteth my soul after Thee, Oh God : 
my soul is athirst for God, even for the living God." — " I wait 
for the Lord ; my soul doth wait \ as those that watch for the 



84 



THE SOUL : 



morning." But, by the continuance of such exercises, the fer- 
vency of desire gradually ripens into love, and love goes on 
heightening till at last the soul becomes conscious of it ; and then 
the crisis is reached. / believe at least that the transition depends 
on the following principle : — no soul can possibly know that it 
loves God, and not at once infer (whether aware or not of the 
mental process) that God loved it first s* so powerful and clear is 
the direct perception that all our highest and best feelings are 
shadows of His : if therefore we, imperfect and puny, in truth 
love Him who is unseen and dimly known, how much more does 
He, who cannot overlook us, assuredly love us ; — not indeed be- 
cause we deserve it, but because it is part of his own nature's 
perfection. 

In claiming a personal relation with God, nothing exclusive is 
intended : nay, he who thus learns that he is loved by God, 
learns simultaneously that all other men and creatures are also 
loved : (though a hateful dogma may here mar his soul's in- 
stinct.) That is an important lesson for the man's external 
action ; indeed, is a foundation of universal love in the soul ; but 
its inward movements towards God proceed exactly as if there 
were no other creature beside itself in the universe. Thus the 
discovery that it loves and is loved in turn produces sensible Joy ; 
in some natures very powerful, in all imparting cheerfulness, 
hope, vivacity. The personal relation sought, is discerned and 
felt. The Soul understands and knows that God is her God ; 
dwelling with her more closely than any creature can; yea, 
neither Stars, nor Sea, nor smiling Nature hold God so inti- 
mately as the bosom of the Soul. What is He to it ? what, but 
the Soul of the soul ? It no longer seems profane to say, " God 
is my bosom-friend : God is for me, and I am for Him." So 
Joy bursts out into Praise, and all things look brilliant; and 
hardship seems easy, and duty becomes delight, and contempt is 
not felt, and every morsel of bread is sweet. Then, though we 
know that the physical Universe has fixed unaltering laws, we 
cannot help seeing God's hand in events. Whatever happens, we 
think of as his Mercies, his Kindnesses ; or his Visitations and 
his Chastisements; everything comes to us from his love : — and 
this may be very illogical, (and possibly may be a mere illusion,) 
yet we should do such violence to the soul's instinct in not thus 
thinking that we follow it unreasoningly, and leave others to re- 
concile the paradox. Thus the whole world is fresh to us with 

* In Creeds, this practical and blessed truth assumes the vexatious 
form of a logical, or rather illogical, doctrine, called Preventive Grace. 



SENSE OF PERSONAL RELATION TO GOD. 



85 



sweetness before untasted. All things are ours, whether afflic- 
tion or pleasure, health or pain. Old things are passed away ; 
behold ! all things are become new : and the soul wonders, and 
admires, and gives thanks, and exults like the child on a summer's 
day ; — and understands that she is as a new-born child : she has 
undergone a New Birth ! It is not birth after the flesh," but a 
birth of the Spirit, birth into a heavenly union, birth into the 
family of God. Why need she scruple to say, that she is " par- 
taker of the divine nature," if God loves her and dwells in her 
bosom ? 

Header, accept these mystical metaphors as such. Behold in 
them the soul labouring to express her feelings; but freeze 
them not into logical terms, or they will become the letter that 
killeth. 

Is all this to the philosopher a vain dream ? can he explain it 
all? does he scorn it all? Whatever theory he may form con- 
cerning it, it is not the less a fact of human nature : one of some 
age too : for David thirsted after God and exceedingly rejoiced in 
Him, and so did Paul ; and the feelings which they describe are 
reproduced in the present day. To despise wide-spread en- 
during facts is not philosophic ; and when they conduce to power 
of goodness and inward happiness, it might be wise to learn the 
phenomena by personal experience, before theorizing about them. 
It was not a proud thing of Paul to say, but a simple truth, that 
the spiritual cannot be judged by the unspiritual. 

The single thought, " God is for my soul, and my soul is for 
Him," suffices to fill a universe of feeling, and gives rise to a 
hundred metaphors. Spiritual persons have exhausted human 
relationships in the vain attempt to express their full sense of 
what God (or Christ) is to them. Father, Brother, Friend, 
King, Master, Shepherd, Guide, are common titles. In other 
figures, God is their Tower, their Glory, their Kock, their Shield, 
their Sun, their Star, their Joy, their Portion, their Hope, their 
Trust, their Life. But what has been said, will show why a still 
tenderer tie has ordinarily presented itself to the Christian imagi- 
nation as a very appropriate metaphor, — that of Marriage. The 
habit of breathing to God our most secret hopes, sorrows, com- 
plaints, and wishes, in unheard whisper, with the consciousness 
that He is always inseparable from our being, perhaps pressed 
this comparison forward.* Yet there are other still more marked 
phenomena, acting in the same direction, which will need to be 
presently analyzed. 

Thus an important beginning is made of that process, by 
* See Note 1 at the end of this Chapter. 



86 



THE SOUL 5 



which all the passions of human nature are to be harmonized and 
glorified. Indeed, where the phenomena are marked, for the 
time it might seem as if the secondary principles were swallowed 
up and lost : for even Conscience fails to operate as such ; the 
words Duty and Virtue become distasteful, and Merit exceedingly 
odious. Now this is angelic, so long as ail duties are notwith- 
standing performed ; for to act from love to God and from the 
new instincts of the Soul is far better than to act from a sense of 
Duty, which is apt to be a dry and external thing. Yet there is 
here a danger, in regard to that class of duties which are ordi- 
narily performed by affection, and are no mere external thing, — 
chiefly those among blood relations : for the domestic affections 
are sometimes absorbed and starved, not ennobled, by the new 
affection ; and this is a great calamity. Young persons especially 
are put out of relation to their parents, brothers and sisters by 
their change : for they find a new prompter to action, which 
supersedes former conventional rules ; and they do not conceal 
that they feel themselves wiser than their elders. Or if they do, 
still it is hard for them to behave with the same sort of deference 
as before. In many old ways the new life is cramped and uneasy, 
and demands enlargement ; and slight breaches of the delicacy of 
domestic relation are made, which are difficult to repair. While 
thus Habit and Domestic Affection, the two most strengthening 
and purifying springs of common virtue, receive some little shock, 
many smaller duties are apt to suffer, unless the new principle is 
wonderfully energetic and the Soul follows its own instincts most 
faithfully, without derangement from men's false theories which 
meet it. But this is seldom possible ; and in many cases one 
part of the moral conduct becomes less amiable than before, for 
reasons which are now to be detailed. 

Allusion was made towards the. end of the Second Chapter, to 
rudimentary but honest worshippers, who feel sincere reverence 
towards God, and are kept by that reverence at a certain distance 
from moral evil, although religion is to them rather a negative 
than a positive thing. The religion of such having no powerful 
inward spring, is very much influenced by external circumstances; 
as, first of all, by the national morality ; and this again, by poli- 
tical institutions. Isor only so, but it is affected by the quality 
of the spiritual (or it may be poetical or fanatical) tendencies, 
which are in contact with it, but do not pervade it. Perhaps it 
becomes worst, when it has no such external antagonist at all : 
which was the case in Judaea, after Prophecy and Poetry had 
sunk, while no culture of Pine Art existed, where Enthusiasm 
was shut up in rustic brotherhoods, and Priests possessed the 



SENSE OF PERSONAL RELATION TO GOD. 87 



political government. Hence the religion became a dead, formal 
and often hypocritical routine, more offensive than Paganism, for 
the very reason that Paganism makes no professions of a holy- 
God and a moral worship. — But that which thus appeared as 
Pharisaism in J udsea, became in Greece Stoicism, where Imagi- 
native Culture relieved the deadness of the atmosphere : and the 
noble Hymn to Jupiter, composed by the Stoic Cleanthes, shows 
us that there was a true heart in Stoicism. In Eome, side by 
side with rising Christianity, Stoicism improved still more ; and 
that excellent Emperor Marcus Antoninus exhibits it to us in the 
height of gentleness as well as of self-sacrificing conscientious- 
ness. — In modern England, the political institutions and the dif- 
fusion of considerable spiritual light, have in the same way acted 
from without upon the Stoics of our day; and unless we resolve 
to blind our own eyes, we shall see around us persons of great 
worth, whose character I may sketch as follows. 

Conscience in them takes the lead of the conduct, and they 
are capable of the greatest sacrifices at the call of Duty. They 
discern intellectually all the moral perfections of God, and sin- 
cerely revere Him. The thought of his All-seeing eye braces 
them against temptation, nor are any more trustworthy persons 
to be found for all the ordinary outward duties of life. Yet 
their religion is not a very inward nor productive one : it sanc- 
tions and confirms, but does not animate and elevate their mo- 
rality. They rather know with the mind, than feel with the 
soul, that God searches their hearts : as may be inferred from 
their not understanding inward conflicts. They are, probably, 
generally persons of a strong Will, moderate Passions, or very 
well trained from childhood. While tbey are mild towards the 
unselfishly irreligious, and show towards penitent offenders a 
feeling which, though not tender, is considerate, they are ex- 
ceedingly keen critics of all professors of spirituality, and cannot 
make allowance for errors of impulse and neglect in such. They 
have apparently a good conscience before God, derived perhaps 
from a benevolent and healthy mind, which acts too vigorously 
upon that which is without, ever to feed upon itself. To do 
their duty is their sufficient satisfaction, without reflecting on 
their own doings : but their standard of duty is principally an 
external one. They lean upon God in times of trial, but proba- 
bly do not seek to Him for pleasure at other times. They do 
not press passionately after Him, but rather suspect all such 
things as delusion. That there is no vivid and satisfying sense 
of His presence, is known by the liking which they show for out- 
ward distinctions, and many artificial pleasures, as also by their 



88 



THE SOUL : 



regard for fashion and for the world's opinion in trifles ; yet they 
have strength of mind to rise above these things, whenever clear 
duty calls. They act " upon principle," that is, upon rules capa- 
ble of being defined in words ; and seldom think it wise to follow 
the instinct of the soul, even so far as to hear this instead of 
that preacher. In short, the Will is strong in them, the Moral 
Faculties are sound, Eeverence is unfeigned, yet the Soul is weak 
and inactive ; there is no painful want of Peace, for there is no 
keen sensitiveness as to inward Sin and no fervent aspiration ; 
but Joy cannot exist, because there is no passionateness in the 
soul. 

Now, between such a character and a soul which has suddenly 
come into new and vehement life, there is some natural repul- 
sion : and they may often be actually members of the same 
domestic circle. Each sees the other's defects. The one ap- 
pears to be stiff, dry, pharisaic, and certainly unregenerate ; the 
other to be self-pleasing, uncontrolled, incapable of conscientious 
sacrifice, one-sided in moral con luct, self-confident and very pre- 
sumptuous. The former, having little or no consciousness of 
spiritual instinct, gathers, with mingled indignation and concern, 
that the latter believes himself guided by the Spirit of God wdthin 
his heart.* The discovery of this excites alarm, similar to that 
which a hen feels, w 7 hose ducklings are venturing on an element 
which would be fatal to her ; and gloomy presages occur, on re- 
membering all the sins and inconsistencies wdiich are real or 
reported concerning professors of spirituality. But self-confi- 
dence, as a universal imputation against them, though plausible, 
is untrue ; for the young and new-born soul is so conscious of 
ignorance, as to lean even unduly on the judgments and advice 
of the more experienced, in whom it discerns congeniality. Yet 
what do these teachers do, to aid it in avoiding injurious colli- 
sion and unjust sentiment ? They steep it in bigotry and super- 
ciliousness. They identify the unregenerate with the ungodly, 
and teach that these are under the wrath of God, and on their 
way to everlasting misery. So the young soul, which confidingly 
drinks in their instruction, learns to look on conscientious and 

*. A consciousness of this new instinct has in every age led spiritual 
men (Jews or Christians) to speak of it as God in them, Christ in them, 
the Spirit in them. It is felt as something superadded to their old nature, 
and to contest whether their phraseology is logically accurate, appears to 
be useless, unless we can first know what is the essence of God and what 
the essence of Instinct. Perhaps it is not quite superfluous to add, that 
no man can without absurdity adduce the inward movements of his own 
Spirit as an argument to another, or as any justification of conduct which 
needs to be justified. 



SENSE OF PERSONAL RELATION TO GOD. 



89 



devout worshippers as under God's auger and condemnation ! 
This is to poison spiritual sentiment in its opening life; and 
words will not adequately express the amount of evil caused by 
it. — There is indeed an opposite school who see this, but are 
very unhappy in their remedy ; namely, they sanction the dogma, 
that " the unregenerate are ungodly," but proceed to ignore the 
whole momentous reality of the New Birth, by identifying it with 
a magical process effected by sprinkling water on an infant ! and 
then, forsooth, justify this by quoting certain figures of bold 
rhetoric from the New Testament. Between such immoral 
bigotry on the one hand, and such dead mechanism on the other, 
it may seem difficult to choose; but nothing in God's real world 
confines us to the alternative. 

God has two families of children on this earth ; the once horn 
and the twice born ; both obedient, both reverential, both imper- 
fect, each essential to the other. Let neither despise the other, 
but let each learn his own weakness, and the other's strength. 
To those who were religious, but not spiritual, we above applied 
the words : " We have a little sister, and she has no breasts :" 
but, behold, the little sister is grown up, and she still has no 
breasts, for she is a Man ! And this opens to us the relation of 
the two classes, in their present development. We see in them 
the Man-soul and the Woman-soul, that which thinks and that 
which feels, the negative and the positive, the formal and the in- 
stinctive, the critical and the creative, the principle of conser- 
vatism and the principle of progress : in the one the Conscience, 
in the other the AJfection, takes the lead ; yet one without the 
other could never be made perfect. How the more formal and 
rigid has been mellowed by contact with the more poetical and 
affectionate, has been already noticed; but conversely, it is equally 
certain that wild fanaticism has resulted and may result again, 
where the passions of the men of Soul are not controlled by the 
moral influences of the men of Conscience. It is by their mutual 
action that God has provided for the growing up of human 
nature into a capacity or predisposition for true religion. Hence 
the schism between the two characters is far less in modern 
Europe than it was in antiquity ; and each individual of us must 
look to combine more and more the excellences of both. Not 
that it seems for a moment doubtful, which of the two has the 
higher order of religion ; in fact, they are fundamentally related 
as Law and Gospel, and in some respects as Priest and Pro- 
phet ; but a novice in the latter may be less trustworthy, though 
of greater promise, than a veteran in the former ; and although 
it is inevitable that one of the new born, while the feelings are 



90 



THE SOUL: 



all fresh, will discover who are and who are not congenial, he 
needs not to despise the latter. The two forms of character are 
as parallel streams, neither of which can stop, — nor their dis- 
tinctions be wholly obliterated, — until, blending gradually, they 
become one in the bosom of God ; who is neither male nor 
female, but feminine in soul and masculine in action ; so that 
the old Orphic hymn was not far wrong in saying, 

Zeis apcrrjv yevero, Zeus cLfxfiporos %tt\ztq pifJLcprj, 
Jove was a male, and Jove was an immortal damsel. 

So also should we translate the old heathen maxim, suaviter in 
modo t fortiter in re, into, tender in heart and firm in action. 
Moreover, it is to be calculated that if the new life proceed hap- 
pily, it will as a thing of course at length take up into itself all 
the steadiness of the opposite character. On the contrary, it is 
not easy for the developed Legal religionist to superadd the Gos- 
pel qualities, except either by domestic afflictions and other suf- 
ferings which deeply probe the heart, or by conflicts such as 
were described in the Third Chapter : yet no one can say what 
might be effected, if a deeper and wiser teaching on these topics 
abounded among us. — After this digression, we return to the 
case of the new-born soul. 

If such evils as have been alluded to, — presumption and 
superciliousness, and their unlovely despiritualizing results, — be 
avoided, nevertheless the lapse of no long time brings to light 
certain defects in this state of inexperience. Perhaps, indeed, 
the soul has not as yet at all learned to look on God as the 
source whence its life is to come, and is simply living on its own 
affections. So long as its addresses to Him abound with un- 
forced outpouring of love and joy, all seems to go well; but 
when the affections become exhausted, the sense of His love 
seems to vanish with them, and discomfort ensues. This cir- 
cumstance alone must ensure a new set of actions in the soul, 
directed to give stability to the affections : but several causes 
may combine in setting it to the difficult practical problem, — 
how to keep the affections lively, and how to recover them when 
lost. Let us think for a moment how this problem is related to 
the other, — of winning and keeping Peace. 

It appeared that the Will and the Affections are the two parts 
of man which have to be perfected according to the will of God, 
As soon as the Will is conformed to God, Peace comes of itself, 
unless intellectual error pervert the proper actings of the Soul. 
If the Will have gone astray, there is only one cure, but that is a 
sure and speedy one, — an immediate laying bare of the heart to 



SENSE OF PERSONAL RELATION TO GOD. 



91 



God, by which the evil Will is expelled; then Peace is regained, 
as soon as the path of duty can be recovered. But farther; the 
utility (so to say) of Peace, is, to enable us to come into so close 
contact with God's Spirit, as to have our Affections acted on by 
Him. Now if there has been no marked flagging in them, no 
difficulty may be incurred. But nothing is more common than 
for persons not to know that worldly occupations, especially 
mental distraction, must needs unstring the spiritual affections ; 
and then they are apt to be severe on themselves, when they find 
it out. Most have to learn by their own errors and sufferings, 
and at last discover with some surprise what was meant by the 
prayer of Faith* He whose faith is well rooted, if he detects 
himself to be dull, unthankful and cold, instead of losing his 
energies in self-reproach, can at once cry in self-despair and con- 
fidence : " My flesh, O Lord, is weak, but my spirit is willing : 
my heart is barren and dry, but Thine is an ever-flowing fountain : 
I am cold and starved, but Thou art an eternal Sun : Thou wilt 
melt me into new love, and kindle me into holier life than before. 35 
One who in very earnest so calis to God, recovers in one half 
minute all that had been lost : but the power of so doing is one 
of the things most to be coveted, and, I imagine, hardest to at- 
tain ; because it presupposes a confidence, settled in the intel- 
lect, and yet a practical one, of God's unchangeable and active love 
to us. At any rate, it is a <£ Faith that worketh by Love" ; for 
no one can exercise it without a true love to God, though that 
love may be so weak, that the person is unconscious of it. Our 
sense of his love (we said) was primitively excited by our own 
affections to Him, and therefore it is apt to vanish when they 
wear out : thus we might seem to run round in a circle, when 
we are to get back our Affections by the exercise of Faith, when 
Faith presupposes his Love, and His Love is only known to us 
through our own Affections. But this is not quite correct. 
Faith does not imply any sensible feeling of God's Love, such as 

* Mark xi. 22. " Have faith in God : for whosoever shall say to this 
mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not 
doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall 
come to pass : — he shall have whatsoever he saith. Therefore I say unto 
you, What thing soever ye desire when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, 
and ye shall have them J* 

Does it not appear almost a moral certainty, that Jesus alluded solely 
to spiritual desires, and to mountains internal to the soul ; although, in 
the very imperfect report which we have of his words, he is made to refer 
to physical miracles such as the blasting of a fig-tree ? I know an excel- 
lent man, who, resolving to subjugate his understanding to the obedience 
of faith, attempted on the authority of this text, to heal a blind person. 
What Bibliolater can blame him 1 



92 



THE SOUL : 



would produce present joy ; but the remembrances of the past 
suffice to stimulate it ; hence it strengthens with time and experi- 
ence. 

In many cases there is a new crisis in the religious life brought 
about by the pressure of temptation. It is not here requisite to 
insist anew on the mortal antagonism between immoral will and 
spiritual aspiration, or to suggest the numerous causes which 
may lead to severe assaults of temptation, when the " "First Love" 
of the soul has drooped. The forms of trial must differ exceed- 
ingly in every two persons. If the old habits were bad, but were 
swept away by the new flood of life, the soul perhaps thought 
they were gone for ever ; but as soon as the tide ebbs, they seek 
to return. Not to consider the melancholy, but perhaps common 
case with such persons, where relapses into wilful sin have deeply 
wounded the spirit ; no sooner have the affections towards God 
decayed, than a man finds himself as it were on the brink of a 
precipice, where his head swims and his soul turns sick. Or 
again, the conscience has become more sensitive, during the period 
in which the affections were powerfully excited ; and inward evils 
begin to be discovered to an amount before unsuspected. The 
man has become self-reflecting ; and may be plunged into a strug- 
gle similar to that of the preceding Chapter, though modified by 
his remembrances of the past. Or thirdly, totally new dangers 
may have grown up by lapse of time, change of circumstances, 
the development of new passions, nay, and even by the action 
of the new life itself, in conjunction with erroneous theories. 
Whatever the series of causes, a horror oppresses him, lest, after 
tasting the sweetness and glories of a higher, he should fall back 
into a baser, life : and it is probable that some conflict of this 
kind, more or less severe, is essential to give tenderness of Con- 
science to one who at first was drawn only by Sentiment. How- 
ever pure and sound this sentiment may seem, it is likely to be 
unequable in its action and too unmixed with religious fear. In 
a soul of this character, as was observed, the Majesty of God 
and all his more overwhelming attributes are kept exceedingly 
in the back ground : He is loved only as the impersonation of 
Beauty and Purity, Kindness and Mercy, and is felt to be as it 
were the Soul of the soul. Too little sense of the infinite in- 
equality of God and his creature, perhaps here operates : and it 
is wholesome for such a one now to be made to tremble for fear of 
forfeiting his favour. The alarm and anxiety however have 
nothing slavish in them : sin is dreaded, not because of appre- 
hended punishment, but because it will grieve the Spirit of God, 
and shut out the light of His countenance : and by such con- 



SENSE OF PERSONAL RELATION TO GOD. 



93 



flicts the soul is to learn to shun sensitively any near approach 
of sin, and never to trifle with it, or think any thing light. In 
some cases the distress becomes very lively ; and half- instructed 
persons are apt to fancy that they have committed " the unpar- 
donable sin or that they are those into whom Seven devils 
have come, for the One which was cast out. Out of all these 
agitations grows a new form of desire, viz. to secure the perma- 
nence of that union with God which has already commenced : that 
is to say, the soul is no longer satisfied with present good, but 
is solicitous also for the future. This implies a growing up of 
thoughtfulness and self-distrust; with a sense that it cannot de- 
pend upon its own affections, but must look to God as the great 
source whence life and power are to originate : now then pro- 
bably Prayer commences with an intensity before unknown, 
while the songs of Praise and Joy are dumb. By such exercises, 
what was defective in the former view of God gets corrected, and 
a habit is formed of prayer against temptation the moment it 
approaches : a habit which could hardly exist, while the soul was 
deficient in self-reflection and self-knowledge. 

How long this crisis may last and in what way the result may 
be evolved, may vary greatly, and in part it may be affected by 
doctrinal theories ; nay, the mind may be led off into critical dis- 
cussions about the " Pinal Perseverance of the Saints." But no 
proposition that needs to be authoritatively guaranteed ever sup- 
plies a spiritual want ; and it does not appear in practice that 
that doctrine is by any means essential to comfort. That emi- 
nent saint, PI etcher of Madeley, was as well without it, as his Whit- 
fieldian opponents with it. Although traditional theories greatly 
obscure this part of the subject, it appears to me that the fol- 
lowing statement is fundamentally accurate. — A person who ve- 
hemently desires and prays for a particular object, is in the in- 
tervals necessarily much engaged in asking himself, whether he 
is praying for that which God can properly give. When there- 
fore what had at first been cries of distress, perhaps from a faith- 
less and double mind, become genuine and fixed desires ; when 
crude yearnings for — he hardly knew what, clear up into distinct 
petitions which can be afterwards meditated on ; the soul wakes 
at length into a full self-consciousness that it is wanting nothing, 
except exactly that, which of all things it is certain that God must 
rejoice to grant ; viz. that it may never break away from His 
love. As soon as this is intellectually discerned, if earnest desire 
is at the same time acting, anxiety and fear fall away of them- 
selves. The man is, in fact, hungering and thirsting for righte- 
ousness, and he has now found out that he is : it is then not to 



94 



THE soul: 



be wondered at, (much less to be derided as vain,) if he unhesi- 
tatingly believes that God will supply all his need, will keep him 
from falling, and will preserve him faithful to the end. He now 
may, or he may not, frame out of his experience a general pro- 
position about the " Final Perseverance of the Saints but no 
such proposition is wanted, while his heart is in harmony with 
God ; none does him good while he is perverse or double-minded. 

Those in whom these phenomena have been sharply marked, 
so as to make a new crisis of the life, seem instinctively to com- 
pare the process which they thus undergo to a Spiritual Marriage. 
We have seen the longings of the soul to convert God's transitory 
visits into an abiding and indissoluble union. On getting a 
clear perception that it is asking that which He delights to bestow, 
it believes that its prayer is answered : so it makes a covenant 
with God and pledges itself to him, well-assured that He accepts 
the pledge. " Not now only, Oh my Lord," it exclaims, " but 
henceforth and always, Thou art mine and I am thine. I have 
known somewhat of Thy gloriousness and loveliness : I have 
loved Thee a little : this heart has been Thy dwelling-place : 
now do I claim that my Lord shall never go away, but dwell 
here inseparably, eternally." — It is therefore very far indeed from 
a gratuitous phantasy, to speak of this as a marriage of the soul 
to God : no other metaphor in fact will express the thing ; and 
it is hard to think that any can have experienced it and not feel 
the suitability of the phrase, though (for fear of casting pearls 
before swine) one must ordinarily avoid every allusion to what 
is not only a sacred but a momentous transaction. Momentous : 
for even the intellectual remembrance of such vows, such claims, 
such joys, such hopes, — gives to the soul immense power of re- 
covering its affections, when lost as they must be continually lost, 
if only by the wear and tear of the world. At the same time I 
am not defending the language of human loves, in the extent to 
which grave and pure-minded persons have often here applied it. 

Yet the strongly-marked analogy between the Soul's love to 
God, and that borne by a woman to her husband, is in several 
ways instructive and even suggestive. It gives the solution 
to various anomalies. Many utterances of passion are right, 
healthy and amiable in secret, which, when exhibited before the 
cold-minded, seem only ridiculous ; not but that, if one could 
condescend to the task, rapturous love might be defended even 
to a utilitarian. And this is the reply to those, who sneer at 
what they think (in religion) to be moping fancies, self-invented 
sorrows and empty joys. When spiritual life gushes out fresh 
and powerful, it may possibly be turbulent and irregular, like the 



SENSE OF PERSONAL RELATION TO GOD. 



95 



mountain torrent or like the early affection of lovers ; but in its 
later course its tendency (when happily guided) is to become 
tranquil and even-flowing, fertilizing to those who know not its 
source. Who would get rid of the noisy brook, if with it he 
must lose the noble river ? Who that knows the ever-fresh 
delights of long wedded love, thinks them dearly bought by the 
alarms and sorrows and palpitations and jealousies and undue 
absorption of the mind in courtship ? 

So deeply impressed in Jewish and Christian religion have 
been the exercises of soul just described, that out of them has 
arisen the perception of a new attribute in God, before unknown ; 
namely, his Faithfulness. It is difficult, or perhaps impossible, 
to silence the objections of philosophers to the idea, that the 
Most High has entered into a private stipulation with this or that 
soul ; and we may admit, that such a statement does but crudely 
express the real truth at which it hints, and which the intellect 
imperfectly embraces. Yet nothing will convince the Soul which 
has passed through such processes, that it does not discern a 
spiritual reality, when it dwells on the Faithfulness of God. 
Hence it has been said : " The Secret of the Lord is with them 
that fear Him, and He will show them his Covenant " and in- 
deed, the conception of a definite Covenant between God and 
the Soul, as it is ascribed to the very birth of Judaism, — to 
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob ; and again, as renewed with Moses 
and with David, — so it lasts to the end among those who trace 
their spiritual lineage through these progenitors. That the 
fallible human intellect may here attach error to its truth, is 
freely conceded. Men may pray for external things, as for the 
possession of a strip of land, or the continuation of an earthly 
dynasty ; and may imagine that they have gained assent to their 
prayer,* so that its accomplishment is guaranteed to them by a 
divine Covenant. It is even possible, that as Prayer began in 
petitions for outward things, and only in a later stage ripens into 
a spiritual form, so also the idea of God's Promises and Covenant 
has necessarily in its origin something of error mingled with it* 
Nevertheless, if the soul's assurance that God attends to spiritual 
prayer is not a mere delusion, — (to assert which is to make 
Theism and Atheism equivalent, as far as internal and spiritual 
life are concerned,) — then neither is it delusive to believe that 
we may call God's Strength in to aid our weakness, and may 
rest upon His faithful performance of that to which we have 
pledged Him. 



* See Note 2 at the end of this Chapter. 



96 



THE SOUL : 



A distinction must be here made, not only between outward 
events and inward phenomena, but perhaps also between the 
moral and the spiritual within us. All spiritual men confess 
their utter impotency to be as spiritual as they wish ; but they 
do not by any means so entirely confess to moral impotency. 
Sharply to mark where the moral ends and the spiritual begins, 
is perhaps impossible, or at least need not be here attempted. 
It is enough to say, that where we feel that God has given us 
abiding and inherent strength, we of course have to stir up that 
strength, but cannot seek to cast ourselves on his faithfulness. 
Such reliance on Him belongs exclusively to that class of actions 
in which we know we are weak : — that is, in contending against 
our besetting moral sin, (if by nature or by old bad habits we 
have any in particular,) — and, in all purely spiritual affection. 
Of the latter emphatically God is the source ; and here that the 
soul is practically correct in relying on God's faithfulness as a 
reality exterior to itself, appears from the result : — namely ; thus, 
and thus alone, is its inward love, strength, joy, peace, renewed 
and developed. 

The feeling of this contrast between our inherent strength and 
our fitful weakness, has farther led to the phraseology which con- 
trasts " Nature" and " Grace." All Nature indeed is from 
God. Nature is divine if any thing in this world is : why 
should any one think to honour God, by undervaluing Nature ? 
— There is truth and weight in that objection ; and many reli- 
gious people lay themselves open to just reproof on this head. 
Nevertheless, they have a meaning, and a correct one, in the con- 
trast above denoted. Thus when it is said, that "Nature, with- 
out Grace, will not enable us to serve God acceptably; they 
mean, — that the strength which the Soul regards as its own, and 
natural to it, because always at its command, is found not to 
suffice for the exigencies of spiritual life. It needs, over and 
above, a strength out of itself, obtained only by self- despairing 
faith in God ; and this strength from God is called Grace. 

Herein we farther see, that the Soul's Covenant or Marriage 
with God is something more than a simple act of Self- Consecra- 
tion. For it is possible to devote ourselves to God in a self- 
relying spirit ; and many a man, with the best intentions, has 
brought himself into deep spiritual unhappiness by resolving and 
vowing to God that which (experience soon shows) is beyond his 
ability to perform. Probably such disappointing and humili- 
ating attempts are with many preliminary to that better Cove- 
nant, which is made without self-reliance, and in which an eter- 
nal support is found : which is indeed a self-consecration, yet 



SENSE OF PERSONAL RELATION TO GOD. 



97 



one in which we look to receive, not to bestow ; to drink of 
God's water of life, and only of His own to render to Him. To 
enter however into such covenant with God is a blessedness not 
to be attained by means of book-faith ; which at best only brings 
men to believe some general proposition, — perhaps an important 
one, yet inadequate without special application. How inade- 
quate, is clearly seen, when any carry Bibliolatry out to its legi- 
timate conclusion, by maintaining that " it is no want of faith for 
an individual A B to suspect that God means to leave him in his 
sins for ever ; inasmuch as nowhere in the Bible is it asserted that 
God intends to sane A B" The extravagance of this result, 
which deprives Faith of all practical value, has always led a ma- 
jority of spiritual men to modify the theory, generally perhaps 
by alledging that " the Spirit, 3 ' as something separable from 
and higher than the Word, " applies God's general promises to 
the particular case." Indeed very opposite schools of spiritual 
doctrine have agreed that the saint learns "by the Spirit" to say 
My God, My Father, and (in short) to take to himself personally 
all that God has to bestow. This not only cannot be communi- 
cated by book-faith, but moreover has nothing to do with any 
historical faith at all. It was possessed, in a high degree and 
earlier than Christian times, by many of the Hebrew Psalmists ; 
and it obviously depends on the absolute trust of the soul in God 
as in one with whom it has actual intercourse. If it has a real 
perception and consciousness of such intercourse, its insight and 
its trust are personal and direct, and do not depend on any his- 
torical opinions : if it has no such perception, it cannot possibly 
get that appropriation which is confessedly essential to a living 
and happy faith. The evidence of this obtrudes itself on the 
mind in so many forms, that the admission of it is perpetually 
slipping out from spiritual persons, even though their intellect 
has been from childhood pre-occupied by a baseless Bibliolatry, 
and by a carnal* homage to outward miracles. 

In reply to those who despise all inward experiences as simple 
delusion, it would be a sufficient defensive argument to say, that 
love to God is as respectable a passion as love for the Fine Arts : 
but the surpassing magnitude of the moral consequences justifies 
us theoretically in assuming a much higher tone % and the only 

* So carnal are the prevalent notions, that a man who does not believe 
that God reveals himself to eye or ear is at once called an unbeliever in 
Revelation ! As justly were men called Atheists by the Pagans, for hold- 
ing God to be invisible. Revelation was differently understood by Paul, 
Ephes. i. 17 ; Rom. i. 19 : so Matt. xi. 25. On the Christian idea of 
Revelation, see farther in J. D. Morell's Philosophy of Religion. 

F 



9S 



THE SOUL : 



thing that practically is apt to put to shame and stop the mouth 
of its advocate, is, the deplorable bigotry (of word, if not of feel- 
ing,) in which none indulge so much, as those who speak ear- 
nestly concerning the love of God. When it appears, that ihey 
not only regard themselves as Heaven's sole concern, but count a 
doctrine to be good news, which simultaneously proclaims ever- 
lasting Glory to them, and everlasting, ever-torturing Sin to the 
vast majority of the human race, — the common heart of the 
world boils up with horror at the apparent intensity of selfish- 
ness in those, in whom Self ought to be swallowed up by divine 
Love. When upon this comes an anathema against all who 
differ from them on intellectual questions, men turn away ia 
despair superadded to disgust. Such bigotry is the real cause 
why the heathen have cast down the walls of God's vineyard, and 
the boar out of the wood lays it waste; bigotry, inexcusable by 
the plea of " submitting the understanding to the Scripture." 
For if tlm he Scripture doctrine, ( — I waive the question of inter- 
pretation — ,) then it is a wicked thing to submit their under- 
standings to it : the moral sense and conscience ought to revolt 
against it, as against any other heathenism. It ought to show 
them that the book is not immaculate, and to drive them to the 
teachings of God's Spirit. In fact however I believe, this evil 
side of their doctrine is brought out only now and then, to do 
mischief in controversy; but commonly lies buried in dust in a 
corner of the intellect ; it would therefore be unjust to impute to 
individuals the selfishness inherent in their theoretic creed. 

Let the philosophical moralist farther be assured, that the 
more enlightened minds among spiritual Christians disbelieve the 
most outrageous part of this traditional doctrine ; though laymen 
have no voice to say so, and priests are generally too timid. It 
is not just in him to be thus repelled ; and by it he maims his 
own science. Morals can seldom gain living energy, without the 
impulsive force derived from Spirituals. We do not indeed 
doubt that a man's own self-respect may make him choose to die, 
rather than live degraded in his own eyes by deviating from his 
ideal of right conduct : let earnest Stoicism be confessed to be 
noble and honourable ; though it makes the mind too exclusively 
reflexive, and endangers pride and self-confidence. But however 
much Plato and Cicero may talk of the surpassing beauty of 
Virtue, still Virtue is an abstraction, a set of wise rules, not a 
person ; and cannot call out affection, as an existence exterior to 
the soul does. On the contrary, God is a Person ; and the love 
of Him is of all affections by far the most energetic in exciting 
us to make good our highest ideal of moral excellence, and in 



SENSE OF PERSONAL RELATION TO GOD. 99 

clearing the moral sight, so that that ideal may keep rising. 
Other things being equal, (a condition not to be forgotten,) a 
spiritual man will hold a higher and purer morality than a mere 
moralist. Not only does Duty manifest itself to him as an ever- 
expanding principle, but, — since a larger and larger part of duty 
becomes pleasant and easy, when performed under the stimulus 
of Love, — the Will is enabled to concentrate itself more on that 
which remains difficult, and greater power of performance is 
attained. Hence, " what the Law could not do, in that it was 
weak through the flesh/ 5 is " fulfilled in those, who walk not 
after the flesh, but after the Spirit/' In nothing perhaps is this 
more intelligibly exhibited, than in the sweet spirit of loving re- 
signation, with which hundreds and thousands of obscure Chris- 
tians have endured long sickness and excruciating pain ; while 
mere Stoicism with difficulty obtains from the strongest minds 
more than the suppression of unmanly lamentations, and is 
forced, alas ! to leave suffering unsoftened by a sense of superior 
Love. 

But is it to be hoped, that one who has attained the happ^ be- 
lief of his permanent spiritual union with the Father of Spirits, 
will retain his happiness and bis strength unabated? that his 
conflicts are passed once for all, and that it is constantly a 
heaven on earth, which he will thenceforth live ? No one has a 
right to say of his brother that it may not be thus ; but we see 
very many causes which make it hard to be thus. All probably 
are summed up in Frailty and in Ignorance ; and of these two 
the latter at least seems to be at present inevitable. For now no 
concord is discernible in those who ought to advise or direct ; and 
inexperience generally has to learn by its own failures, if exposed 
to circumstances which require wisdom. Let us suppose that 
there is no Frailty to be blamed : that the heart remains brave to 
duty and ever faithful to God ; still, in the complicated affairs of 
life, it is often most difficult to ascertain what is our duty. So 
many principles of action are established in the world as abso- 
lutely right which are not wholly right; so often does acqui- 
escence in that which society demands or expects, clash or seem 
to clash with that which the spiritual instinct suggests ; espe- 
cially, in dealings with others, so hard is it to know where 
obedience and deference must end, and resistance begin ; where 
mercy will be weakness, and severity is essential ; where we must 
yield up our rights, and where we must contend for them ; — that 
even the coolest mind, and the best furnished with information 
and experience, must often doubt, But, in fact, men frequently 
have not time for cool and full deliberation. In the press and 

f 2 



100 



THE SOUL : 



hurry of life they are forced to act first and think afterwards. 
Moreover we do not foresee the after-results of innocent and well- 
meant actions, but first get entangled in perplexing positions. 
Now, since to act without a clear conscience involves us in a 
sense of sin, what can happen, if we are forced to act, and yet 
are unable to decide which of several paths is the right ? In 
theory it may be replied, that a man who does what on the 
whole seems to him best, or least bad, ought not to reproach 
himself : but in reality when the conscience is dim and doubtful, 
men are apt not to know whether or not they have been faithful 
to their light. For these reasons, increasing wisdom is probably 
always as essential to permanent peace of conscience, as it mani- 
festly is to profitable action. 

But we are far too favourable to human nature, in excluding 
the hypothesis of Frailty. However powerful may have been the 
convictions of spiritual truth, however vivid the impressions, yet 
it is hard for new impulses to wage war against old habits or 
against the insensible tendencies of the common nature; and 
every special temperament has its own weak side. If no strong 
blasts of passion carry the soul away, or if no cankering worldli- 
ness undermine its powers, yet perhaps a time and place comes, 
where it cannot follow its convictions of duty without a sacrifice 
which it has not strength to incur. Sophistry is then brought 
in, to prove that no such sacrifice is really demanded. The heart 
thus loses its simplicity, and languor and self-justification go 
hand in hand. Many are the possibilities of this sort ; — God 
only kuows them ; — so many, that it may seem to be almost 
superhuman happiness to avoid them all. 

In the Third Chapter some notice was taken of the daily 
shortcomings which often cloud the heart of spiritual men : but 
the subject is not easily exhausted ; and there is a peculiarity in 
the case which was better reserved for this Chapter. One who 
has not only recognized God's personal relation to him, but by 
his own act (so far as human acts can avail), has entered into a 
permanent bond, and believes the Most High to have accepted 
his self-consecration; such a one, when made uneasy in con- 
science, is not at all in the same position as he was originally. A 
small sin is in him great, because it is committed against mercy, 
love and daily vows ; yet it is to be compared rather with the 
naughtiness of a child, than with the defiance of a stranger or of 
an enemy. He still feels the sacred ties which unite him to 
God, while he mourns that the face of God is hidden from him 
because of his transgression. A child, who, when called to re- 
ceive the parent's commands or caress, is attracted by some other 



SENSE OF PERSONAL RELATION TO GOD. 



101 



object, and refuses to come, knows that he has done wrong and 
has incurred displeasure, yet does not apprehend abiding or fatal 
consequences from the parent's anger : he is self-displeased and 
unhappy, until he has thoroughly confessed his fault, and has 
purged away the self-will and undutifulness which caused it by 
drinking more deeply into filial love. Just so the child of God 
is affected, suffering self-reproach and grief (greater or less ac- 
cording to the case) but no fear ; and no other anxiety except as 
to how long it will be ere he shall again see his Father's counte- 
nance shine bright upon him. It has become an axiom of feeling 
to him, that he belongs to God: a feeling which is not lost, even 
by conscious wilfulness and perversity. 

Herein we discern the root of the evangelical and prophetic (as 
opposed to the Levitical) idea of a peculiar and chosen people of 
God, who continue to be his people even when they are disobe- 
dient. The notion has appeared frightfully immoral to those 
who do not know practically whence it arises and how it acts ; 
nor can it be denied, that if imbibed by the intellect as a mere 
verbal formula, the belief of an arbitrary divine Election is as 
purely mischievous, as it is shocking when coupled with that of 
the arbitrary damnation of the non-elect. Tet it is certain, that 
a singularly large fraction of the most spiritual and faultless 
Christians have been deeply impressed with the idea of their 
Election by God, not as a mere dogma, but as a truth for daily 
life. Their intellectual processes were probably erroneous ; yet 
it is instructive to disentangle, if possible, their spiritual percep- 
tions. — So long as they are consciously obedient, they may know 
themselves to be God's true people, but the idea of an arbitrary 
election, irrespective of their own obedience, is not likely to 
arise, or at least to take deep hold. But when in the midst of 
conscious ^obedience the soul cannot help crying out, " Though 
I have sinned, yet surely I am Thine," and experiences that this 
sense of appropriation to God goads and scourges the heart into 
sorrow, making sin a thousand times more bitter, until the wan- 
derer is brought back to the bosom of Divine Forgiveness ; — 
then he regards himself as freely and undeservedly chosen by 
God, " predestinated unto good works," " to be holy and with- 
out blame before Him." Thus the spiritual facts which underlie 
the speculation, are, first, that the man who has once been con- 
secrated to a divine union, ordinarily retains an assurance that 
that union is undissolved and indissoluble, even when he falls 
into an evil conscience and loses all happiness in his God ; and, 
secondly, that this assurance is like a chain of love, by which 
God gently draws back to Himself His perverse but self-re- 



102 



THE SOUL: 



proaching child, until shame and sorrow are swallowed up in the 
outflowing^ of faith and gratitude. 

There are however far more grievous cases, — though it is 
always hard to judge whether a man exaggerates his own vile- 
ness, — in which, after " tasting the heavenly gift," a very awful 
hardness of heart has been incurred. In.the retrospect of such 
matters, every one so loathes his past self, as to lose calmness of 
judgment and the power of measuring his language; hence, 
where no specific facts are alledged, great deductions should be 
made from all that a man states against himself. Paul calls 
himself the chief of sinners ; he wrote it sincerely ; but who of 
us takes him at his word ? It is difficult and dangerous to make 
any comment on secrets known fully to one soul only, if even to 
one ; yet there is much to give us deep confidence in the intense 
vitality of spiritual desire, when it has once assumed its highest 
evangelical form. I cannot hesitate to feel, that though hurri- 
canes of passion should have blown off the buds of religion's 
early spring, yet if no selfish injustice has sapped the vital sus- 
ceptibilities of the soul, it is never too late to hope for a restora- 
tion both sudden and final. The "backslider' 5 (as many scrip- 
turalists call him) is inwardly self-condemned; self-despising 
and self-hating, he probably continues in his sinful state through 
despair only. But on some favoured day he all at once remem- 
bers " the joy of his espousals ;" and the thought gushes into 
his heart, that God once loved him, although foreknowing all his 
vileness. He meets the eye of the Almighty, and knows that it 
is an eye of Love : — let no pen seek to tell what bitterness in 
him its glance causes. But it is as an electric stroke rending 
open his inmost nature, fusing all its dross, burning out the 
heart of sin, transforming the spirit into a living magnet which 
obeys the heavenly attraction, until the prodigal son is brought 
back with honour and blessing, though elder brothers frown with 
incredulity. Still he is like one who is recovered by severe 
remedies from an acute disease ; his frame is sore, his strength 
shattered, his soul struck with shame, his finger is as it were on 
his lips, and he dares not speak ; but, like the leper, conscious 
of uncleanness, he shrinks into solitude, and there makes com- 
plaint to Him who freely forgives. Time however will, by God's 
mercy, restore the prostrate soul ; and it may be, that in this 
way lessons have been learnt and defects extirpated, for which 
no more lenient process would have been successful. To the 
milder forms of such humiliations all are liable, from the con- 
stant gravitating of the heart towards negligence and sluggish- 
ness and its old world; — (a dear old world, far too much re- 



SENSE OF PERSONAL RELATION TO GOD. 



103 



viled by spiritual men, yet not able to satisfy the Soul;) — and 
grievous as it is that they should be needed, it is certainly in- 
structive to have some insight into them. In vain is the moralist 
sceptical concerning the intensity of spiritual forces, when he 
carefully keeps out of their region : — what knows the mere me- 
chanician of electricity ? In fact, perhaps, the great transforma- 
tions of the will wmst be sudden. Between living for Sin and 
living for God, there is a yawning chasm ; which must be passed 
per saltum, if at all. 

The Scriptures of both Old and New Testaments are as em- 
phatic in asserting, as moralizers are timid in admitting, the 
unlimited mercy and long-suffering of God : but surely it is one 
of the first elements spiritually discerned, that the impediments 
to acceptance with Him lie solely in us, and that there is no 
time or state conceivable, in which a man shall turn towards 
Him 5 and He refuse to hear. We cannot expect too much rea- 
diness in Him to save, too much tender compassion, for the plain 
reason that these qualities in Him are infinite. We are not 
straitened in Him, but we are straitened in our own bowels : 
our great danger, folly and even sin, lies in Unbelief of His in- 
exhaustible long-suffering. As soon as we do believe it, the 
thought of it kindles all our generous affections, and puts life 
into us. Nor is it possible for one who believes the right thing, 
to abuse it to evil ends : for it is not, that God will never leave 
a perverse and faithless heart to its own ruin and misery, or that 
if we harden our hearts to-day, He will soften them to-morrow ; 
no : but that if now we turn to Him with all the heart, nothing 
that is past (however black it seem to us) is any obstacle with 
Him. I repeat it, from a deep sense of its importance ; as long 
as we are desiring the right thing of God, — that is, immediate 
spiritual recovery and renewed vigour, — we cannot expect it too 
enthusiastically. All the danger is the other way : we are double- 
hearted, we wish not, we expect not, and therefore we receive 
not. When we have become cold and uninterested in all spi- 
ritual things, we often cannot exactly tell why : perhaps it is 
through sinful negligence ; or perhaps it is through the worry 
and distraction of business, and not wholly without physical 
causes. If we set about self-analysis to find out how far we are 
personally guilty, we may get into insoluble questions, and be 
more and more discouraged, the more we look within ; for there 
is assuredly nothing there to strengthen us. But if we can exer- 
cise the energies of Faith, the fact is our sufficient warrant ; for 
it proves that we are true-hearted : and thus we suddenly be- 
come strong out of the midst of our weakness. After we are in 



104 



THE SOUL : 



peace and power, self-analysis is most valuable and indeed neces- 
sary ; it is instructive, humbling and bracing : but while we are 
cold and weak, it is a poisonous thing, like a draught of quinine 
while the ague-fit is upon one. 

While it is needful to know the ways by which the Soul, when 
fundamentally upright, can always regain her lost love, it would 
be discouraging indeed, if we might not look earnestly forward 
to attain, even on this earth, a state in which the affections 
should be recovered as fast as lost, — at intervals so short, that 
the heart should never reproach itself for sin, but only sigh over 
its inherent weakness. This seems to be the state, which the 
Wesleyans (to the scandal of other Christians) have denominated 
Perfection or Full Redemption, and after which they breathe in 
many plaintive or glowing hymns. Surely we may expect, and 
ought to strive, that moral light may be so superadded to fer- 
vency of soul, that divine love may at length become in us, not 
as a torch blazing and smoky at intervals, but as a pure serene 
ever-burning flame, pervading all our nature, animating all our 
acts, consuming our evil principles, and kindling us to every- 
thing good, great and useful. This will lead us to inquire, whe- 
ther the mind can form any more definite ideal of that to which 
it is to aspire, and whether there are any outward helps towards 
it. To these subjects the next Chapter will be devoted. 



Note 1, referred to at page 85. 

The Hebrew prophets, especially of the later school, habitually repre- 
sent the relation of the Israelitish Church collectively to Jehovah, as that 
of a wife to a husband ; but this does not seem to be applied to indi- 
viduals. 

The metaphor was adopted by Paul, who makes the Church the bride of 
Christ : (so the Apocalypse :) yet he first set the example of concen- 
trating the similitude on parts of the Church: " I am jealous over you 
with a godly jealousy, that I may present you as a pure virgin to Christ." 
When the visible Church became a huge mass of Paganism, clearer 
room was left for the individual to claim the metaphor. Indeed in one 
text (1 Cor. vi. 17) Paul himself had been led on to apply it to indivi- 
duals in rather too physical an aspect. 



Note 2, referred to at page 95. 



I knew intimately an eminently devout and in many ways remarkable 
man, who, when pronounced by physicians to be in hopeless consumption, 



SENSE OF PERSONAL RELATION TO GOD. 



105 



was entirely convinced, though in the full possession of his ordinary 
faculties, that God had promised and covenanted with him that he should 
not die, at least without being raised up to preach once more to his people. 
He died without so doing. Here some intellectual hallucination had so 
entwined itself with his devotional exercises, that they could not be sepa- 
rated. There are doubtless thousands of such cases still ; and where the 
theory of religion is in that lower stage which admits of a confident ex- 
pectation that prayer for external things will be granted, (as, the praying 
that it may or it may not rain,) it is perhaps impossible for the highest 
and purest saints wholly to avoid painful mistake on such matters. The 
present generation of the world simply calls such things Fanatical, and 
avoids the error by discrediting all Trust in God. 



F 5 



CHAPTER V. 



ON SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 



It has been seen, how the Soul, weak and wandering, like a 
storm-driven bird, learns to nestle in the bosom of the Infinite 
One, seeking peace or strength, until at length love towards Him 
is born within it : how then out of love springs insight, — insight 
of His prior and greater love to it ; whence the opening of a 
purifying, strengthening and happy intercourse of the secret 
heart with Him. But what is it desiring? In word, it is easy 
to say, — it wants holiness and goodness like His own, that being 
perfectly like Him, it may be indissolubly united to Him : but, 
in fact, it sees no true image of His holiness, and often scarcely 
knows what it wants. Moreover, when outward and moral evils 
have been triumphed over, when the best known spiritual sins 
have been beaten down, it has strength to spare for action ; and 
the question then arises, How is that strength to be employed ? 

It is a great error to imagine that high excellence can ever 
consist in a mere suppressing of some worse and lower tendency ; 
the better part which we choose, may be itself not very elevated. 
The soul may be freed from struggle and the conscience be at 
peace, because its highest convictions have triumphed ; and yet 
its highest may be far from high. Nay, the triumph may be 
due, as much to the weakness of the inferior passions, as to any 
energy of the spiritual nature ; so that a comfortable mediocrity 
is all that will result, unless the moral perceptions keep rising 
which is indeed the only healthful state. To this, however, it 
is probable that increasing mental culture is in certain stages 
essential. The subject is too wide to be here discussed, and 
can only be glanced at : but it is easy to see how pure intellec- 
tual error, depending on causes wholly unmoral, may and does 
perpetuate moral illusions, which are of the deepest injury to 



ON SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 



107 



spiritual life, and keep it down to a very unsatisfactory level. 
In such case, the advance of that knowledge which is purely in- 
tellectual and negative, (which on that account religious men 
are apt to dread,) is absolutely requisite for farther spiritual pro- 
gress. To destroy superstition does not in itself impart reli- 
gion ; yet the destruction is necessary, if religion is to flourish. 

But again : while the soul desires a higher holiness, it inquires, 
what are the peculiar aids (if any) towards attaining this object ; 
and especially, what is the value of those which are offered by 
the practices of social religion or by others which are esteemed 
as " means of grace. 3 ' And although it is hard to give unity to 
these two discussions, it is not convenient to keep them far sepa- 
rate. 

§ 1. ON THE IDEAL OF EXCELLENCE. 

From childhood we hear it repeated, until it seems an axiom, 
that the human life of Christ is the pattern which we are practi- 
cally to imitate : yet the moment we in good earnest attempt such 
imitation, we are beset by the most embarrassing difficulties. 
We find that his vestments will not fit us ; his shape cannot bt 
ours. The figure of him sketched out before us is, in part, fully 
painted up, but evidently inapplicable to our case ; far more of 
it is left blank, so that we have to fill it out by our own imaginations. 
On this whole matter men willingly delude themselves : there is 
a great fiction which they dread to have unveiled : and it may 
be impossible to allude to broad matters of fact, without giving 
very grave offence. However intense one's conviction, common 
sense or humility forbids (for example) to stir the bad passions 
of men invested with power by publicly denouncing them as hypo* 
crites, blind guides, whited sepulchres ; to speak at men's hearts, 
instead of answering their words ; to use enigmatical and para- 
doxical expressions, which offend and confuse the hearers, and 
then withhold public explanation of them ; purposely to encoun- 
ter the malice of the unjust, and lay down one's life by self-chosen 
martyrdom. Grant that these things were all right in Jems ; 
still we discern and feel that they would be all wrong in us. And 
if in none of them we can follow him, it is equally doubtful 
whether we should wisely imitate him by spending whole nights 
on the mountains in prayer, or forty days in fasting. In short, 
the more every detail is pursued, the more absurd it appears to 
propose his conduct (in deed, in word, or in its inward plan) as 
a pattern for ourselves. As to the spirit of his conduct, in con- 
trast to the letter, no book can tell it to us, if our own hearts do 



108 



THE SOUL : 



not ; and even as to outward things, numberless points will day by 
day present themselves, on which we are left to guess how he acted 
or would have acted. For instance, is it really true that he never 
laughed ? This question goes deeper than at first appears. Let the 
image of Puritanical constrained gravity be duly considered, and 
we shall see how pernicious it is to imitate one to whom laughing 
may not be ascribed. Nay, but in ourT whole conception of 
revered names an illusion floats over our minds. Those who ad- 
mire Paul in Raffael's cartoon, might perhaps despise him in a 
mean unpicturesque garb, especially if they found him short in 
stature, stammering, or sore-eyed,* with nothing romantic about 
him. Exactly as we refuse to imagine him of vulgar appearance, 
so do we shrink from the idea of his hearty sympathy with a 
jocose expression or act : yet it would be rash and gratuitous to 
maintain that Paul could not laugh with the same geniality as 
Luther. These are not matters which we could expect to find 
recorded ; yet whatever may be said concerning their dignity, to 
conceive rightly of them is very important. A sober view of 
human life shows that to proscribe the jocose side of our nature 
would be a blunder as grievous in its way as to proscribe love 
between men and women ; though in this last point again we 
see, that neither Christ nor Paul is an example to men in general. 
True religion wages no abstract war against any part of man, but 
gives to each part its due subordination or supremacy, and 
breathes sweetness and purity through all. There are times and 
places when we can not, as well as may not, laugh ; but it is by 
no means the highest state always to stifle laughter. That rather 
belongs to the stiff precisian, who fears to betray something false 
within him, and habitually wears a mask, lest his heart be too 
deeply exposed ; while the true-hearted fearlessly yields to his 
impulse, and no more wishes to hide it from the All-seeing eye, 
than a child would hide his childish sports from the eye of a 
father. 

There is no question which has more vexed spiritual persons, 
than the propriety of occasionally gratifying others by joining 
them in some of the gaieties of life, by abstinence from which 
they often cause great offence : yet no authoritative solution can 
be gained by appeal to any scriptural pattern. One reasons : 
"Jesus went to a wedding; therefore I may go to a ball: 

* His enemies said of him that " his bodily presence was weak, and his 
speech contemptible." The " thorn in the flesh" of which he complains, 
has been plausibly explained both of stammering and of sore eyes. The 
present Bishop of Winchester supposes him to have been afflicted with 
extreme short-sightedness, and so accounts for many smaller curious facts. 



ON SPIRITUAL PUOGUESS. 



109 



especially since at an Oriental wedding there was often dancing 
and music." Another retorts: "A wedding is a serious and 
religious transaction, consequently it cannot be here adduced: 
but we are commanded not to be conformed to this world : a 
precept which forbids us from gay parties, from the theatre, the 
opera, and public concerts, as well as from horse-races and 
country sports." — No analysis of the letter will ever decide such 
controversies. He who is under the Law, is satisfied with re- 
marking that " conformity to this world" means nothing but con- 
formity to its sins, and that the text does not help to decide 
whether this particular case involves sin. He who desires to live 
to God, tries to feel with his soul whether sin (to him) is or is not 
here implicated ; so the Spirit within is the real guide, and not 
the text, any more than the scriptural example. Only a madman 
could reason : " Christ and his apostles are not recorded to have 
attended Plays or Oratorios ; therefore I am prohibited." In 
short, whatever practical question may be started, we always 
alight on the same result, that authoritative examples and precepts 
(as such) can do us no good in the region of spirituality. Law can 
forbid definite acts of sin and command definite acts of duty ; 
but when an action is not in itself sinful, nor in itself obligatory, 
no book-rules can forbid or command it. This is precisely the 
class of things with which spiritual (as transcending moral) life 
is concerned ; and the conclusion is plain, that a book-revelation 
on such subjects is impossible. A person who converts the 
history of Christ or Paul into a new authoritative Law, will often 
be driven to violate his own right feelings and sober judgment. 
Manifestly all sound-minded persons use these histories only by 
way of suggestion, and not as prescribing anything authoritatively. 
Thus the recorded life of Jesus is to us, in principle, only what 
the life of Melancthon or Pascal may be ; for it sometimes does, 
but far oftener does not, call us to imitation ; and we have not 
and cannot have external guidance, when to follow it and when 
not ; or external information as to the spirit in which each re- 
corded action was performed. Indeed, when we read the exhor- 
tations of Paul or Peter " to imitate Christ," it ought not to be 
forgotten, that, on the one hand, these were addressed to persons 
who had no written narratives to call out the ingenuities of ex- 
pounders ; on the other, the end sought was always to recommend 
by his (vaguely reported) example such virtues as heathen moral- 
ists often denied to be virtues : such, namely, as humility, resig- 
nation, long-suffering, condescension. So important was it to 
propose to the converts something in a concrete form that would 
make the meaning of such words more vivid to the mind, that 



110 



THE SOUL : 



Paul does not hesitate to refer to his own conduct, as a model 
which they would do well to imitate. 

The case of conscience just now touched on is an instructive 
illustration of a general principle. The world at large is nearly 
divided between surprize and contempt at the repugnance shown 
by spiritual persons to certain artificial pleasures ; and un- 
doubtedly the disposition of many to enact a new ceremonial law, 
which proclaims, " Thou shalt not dance : Thou shalt not play 
cards," &c, &c, will excuse, if it cannot justify, a great deal of 
ignorant raillery. Yet it cannot be by accident, that in different 
ages and countries, without any definite scriptural prohibition, 
spiritual persons coincide so markedly in apathy or dislike for 
pleasures of this description. I see not how to doubt that an in- 
stinct of the soul guides them, which is without law, and really 
higher than all law. A man who drinks within his own heart 
from a hidden well of joy, cannot run to fill his pitcher from an 
artificial tank : and if by any means that well is closed, his soul 
is widowed, and dreads to be comforted : then less than ever can 
he enjoy even the most innocent gratifications. Else, there are 
many pleasures which, if they come of themselves, he will accept, 
but w T hich he cannot go to fetch. The simple glee of children, 
or the unstudied sallies of wit, may have a great zest for him in 
their measure ; and yet he may feel an invincible repugnance to 
go out of his way for mirth or wit : if they are to be pleasant, 
they must be unsought and unpremeditated.* So in regard to 
the gratification derived from those Public Amusements which 
profess to address the sense of Beauty, a discomfort might de- 
pend on the amount of effort required by them ; but this pro- 
bably is rather secondary. A feeling of Vanity in the circum- 
stantials is that which is painful and wearisome to the religious 
soul, though the feeling is often smothered through kindness and 
good breeding and from a belief that it will do harm to show it. 
What is meant by giving to outward glitter and manufactured 
mirth the offensive name (i Vanity," is more than some can com- 
prehend, who, having no notion of any higher rule than Law, 
think that they settle the matter by asking, "what harm there is 
in a pretty sight." Perhaps there is none to them : they are in 
a puerile state : it may sometimes be right to humour them : at 
least this appears the best way of showing that no morosity 
mingles with distaste for such things. But it cannot be doubted, 
that a person who against the instincts of his soul should become 

* Is not all relaxation and amusement most effective, when there has 
been the least previous forethought spent on it ? 



ON SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 



Ill 



(for instance) a constant opera-goer or play-goer, merely to 
please others, — although it is most true that he is free from 
Law in such matters, — will incur great spiritual mischief : 
for he will overbear and beat down the inward law of his 
heart. 

And this leads farther to a distinct enunciation, that as we can 
neither wish nor have a better rule, concerning the things which 
a common moralist calls "indifferent/ 5 than the Law of the 
Spirit within us, so real spiritual progress will be attended by 
the clearing and strengthening of this inward instinct ; in short, 
therefore, by the overspreading growth of a healthy enthusiasm. 
This is the greatest charm of character, even where it is partial 
and independent of spiritual influences : but the highest idea of 
human perfection, is, that this should pervade the whole man, 
and, in consistency with the truest wisdom, should animate every 
set of actions, while the instinct guides through all delicate ques- 
tions of right and wrong. The upright and faithful soul knows 
and feels what things do, and what do not, impair communion of 
heart with its God ; this is its great clue to its wrong and right ; 
so it is alternately scrupulous where a moralist would be bold, 
and bold where a moralizer might be prudish. Again, by the 
nourishment of its generous affections it gains a power of im- 
pulse, by which it is enabled to carry into effect its right concep- 
tions. All know that in the practical world enthusiasm is the 
chief moving power ; and is very effective, even when joined with 
narrow and distorted judgment. Our misery has been, that the 
men of thought have no religious enthusiasm, and the enthu- 
siastically religious shrink from continuous and searching thought; 
and this must go on until our Theology is shifted away from 
its present basis. That the instincts of the soul, if there are any, 
are of first-rate importance, ought to be confessed even by those 
who know nothing of them : for if the instinct of brutes be the 
guidance of God within them, (JDeus anima bmtorum^) what else 
is the Soul's instinct but the Spirit of God ? But, be it granted, 
such analogies are deceptive : still, by what else but this instinct 
was Divine existence ever discovered at all ? what, but the Soul, 
groping after Him, taught all nations of men to be familiar with 
these high ideas? And if the unenlightened Heathen soul 
achieved so great a revelation, what ought that soul to do, all 
whose powers are stimulated by the love of God, and by constant 
intercourse with him ? 

This is not a doctrine much talked of nowadays; but time was, 
when it was believed by prophets and apostles. They did not 
tell of two Spirits of God, one extraordinary, and one ordinary ; 



112 



THE SOUL: 



one, which, by them dictated propositions, and another which in- 
clined the hearers to "submit their corrupt understanding" to 
the propositions. Every living member of Christ's body, the 
Church, was (in their belief) animated by £C the Selfsame Spirit," 
who " divided to each severally as He would and the Gospel 
was preached, in order that those who believed it might all receive 
that life-giving and enlightening power, and be themselves able 
to listen to the voice of God directing them. Thus of Zion it 
was to be said, " All thy children shall be taught of the Lord, 
and great shall be the peace of thy children out of each man's 
heart were to flow rivers of living water : and their teachers pro- 
fessed not to usurp " dominion over their faith, but only to be 
helpers of their joy nor did they give them a new law of the 
letter, written with ink, but a law written on the fleshy tablets 
of the heart ; bidding them not to quench the Spirit, and to 
prove what was the perfect will of God. But now, by idolizing 
the letter, men do quench the Spirit within them ; and then, are 
unable to understand that very letter, which they blazon forth in 
purple and gold. 

If we would be holy and enlightened as Paul, we must do as 
Paul did; not by slavishly copying the outside of his conduct, 
but by nourishing our inward spirit as he nourished his. He 
refused to learn his religion of men, but listened to the voice of 
God : and so have all the great and good men done, whose re- 
ligions action can be thankfully remembered. Undoubtedly they 
have all been liable to the grievous inconsistency of being un- 
willing to leave other souls as free as they claim that their own 
shall be. They feel to the very bottom of their nature, that 
they cannot serve two masters ; and that if they are to be 
subject to God in earnest, they must be free from the yoke of 
men : and yet, alas ! no sooner do they find themselves at the 
head of admiring and obedient multitudes, than they proceed to 
impose their own yoke on others, and, if possible, on their suc- 
cessors for ever. In early times, the intense evils of this had 
not been historically unfolded, and the apparent practical advan- 
tages of it overbore the abstract remonstrances of conscience; 
but in the present ripeness of experience all cultivated minds 
have before them the full means of freeing themselves from such 
illusions. The immense progress of pure intellect must show 
every thoughtful man the impossibility (not to say the wicked- 
ness) of sacrificing the Intellect to the Soul ; and wherever there 
is true Faith, there is an unhesitating conviction that there can- 
not possibly be any real collision between these two parts of 
human nature. It is now no common guilt, when a man uses 



ON SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 



113 



his spiritual influence to frown down any honest intellectual 
research: but more of this afterwards. 

The pure and pervading enthusiasm to which the soul should 
tend, is a very different thing from eccentricity, and would not 
show itself in superficial excitement, much less in wayward and 
fickle conduct. It is a deep inward fire, slowly fusing the opake 
mass of nature, and bidding it to crystallize into new shapes and 
refract God's light into a thousand hues, so that the whole man 
is about to be transparent, only that the eye of the observer 
is dazzled. Under this influence, each soul will assume its own 
character ; no one aping another, all being unlike, yet the like- 
ness of God being on all : for God has myriads of forms, but 
one essence. In the commencement of this action the instincts 
of the Soul are hardly self-conscious ; and long after, no intel- 
lectual idea of that at which they aim, is as yet presented to the 
mind : but unless this is a mere dream of theory, it would seem 
that in all higher types of spiritual life each must at length shape 
to himself Ms own Ideal, and know what is his service. So 
Paul conceived of one as an Eye, one as a Hand ; no tw T o mem- 
bers alike, but each fitted for his own work. The work, de- 
scribed positively, may be called God's work ; but if we ask 
what work deserves to be so named, the easiest reply is the nega- 
tive one, that it is not that of the world or of the flesh ; — which 
means, not that of selfishness and self-indulgence or self-glorify- 
ing. He works the work of God (even if he knows not God,) 
who works unselfishly for a good end : thus also Faith in God 
is justly said to " overcome the world," or, to mortify all the 
selfish principles which are collectively so denoted. Now nothing 
is more unworldly than enthusiasm in every form : in Art, in 
Science, in Politics, in Trade, it is (even when isolated from 
religion) an inveterate antagonist of selfishness : nor is there 
any character for whom the worldly (or selfish) man feels so 
much contemptuous pity, as for an enthusiast, until some un- 
deniably great result forces him to confess that enthusiasm is 
a powerful reality. The enthusiasm however, of which we 
speak, is not, like these, a partial and one-sided impulse, but 
implies a warm love of everything Good and True, with as 
warm indignation against their opposites-; both feelings rising 
out of the sympathy of the soul with the centre of all Good- 
ness, and its forgetfulness of self in the midst of the great in- 
terests all round at stake. 

In the Third Chapter of this essay, it was shown, how Self- 
consciousness becomes intenser, as we advance towards a deeper 
spirituality ; and evidently without this, there can be no spi- 



114 



THE SOUL : 



ritual self-control and responsible action. Yet unless an oppo- 
site principle were simultaneously unfolded, Self-consciousness 
would painfully embarrass and weaken us, by constantly direct- 
ing the thoughts within, and magnifying the image of self. That 
opposite principle is this Enthusiasm ; which fills the affections 
with thoughts wholly foreign to self, and lifts us above vulgar 
criticism. If this is defective even in statesmen, acuteness and 
experience make them overcautious, inactive, and wise too late. 
For the practical man, Impulse is as essential as Guidance : 
there is serious instruction in the witty saying of a satirical 
poet, that we must not " fear the flames, required to boil our 
kettle." 

While in all " indifferent 5 ' matters (that is, those which Law 
cannot command or forbid) the inward instinct is the rightful 
guide, its powers are stimulated by discerning the instincts of 
others ; and this is God's provision for the progress of moral sen- 
timent. Even brute animals have taught men most valuable 
lessons, and act as daily monitors to us. Their patience and 
docility, their gratitude and faithfulness, their bravery and self- 
devotion, are delightful to see : and the same may be said of a 
hundred virtues, which, like wild flowers, bloom all round us 
in simple half-instructed natures. Let not the spiritual man 
despise the world of common men ; for if he is wise, that world 
is his best outward moral teacher, at least until there shall be 
more of nature in the church. From time to time indeed a young 
enthusiasm arises, and displays on the border of the church some 
new virtue, as zeal against* war and against slavery in the Society 
of Friends, reverence for intellectual freedom in the Unitarians, 
and others which cannot be mentioned without moving contro- 
versy as to fact. Against all new virtues a false church fights long 
and hard, alledging that they " are not in the bond" of her Law ; 
though, when they have conquered men's consciences, she comes 
in to claim the victory, as won by her energies. Christianity 
itself in its origin was nothing but a new enthusiasm, born in 
men's souls by the working of God's Spirit ; so, believers " chal- 
lenged one another to love and good works." This mutual rivalry 
still continues, with benefit, I suppose ; although our increased 
knowledge of the complicated framework of society shows us how 
much political and intellectual wisdom is often needed for judging 
what kindly meant works are really good works. 

But are there antiquated virtues, as well as new ones? Was it 

* I do not intend to express admiration of the unqualified mode in 
which this is pressed. Defensive War is generally a sacred duty, when 
one's soil is invaded. 



ON SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 



115 



a folly in the first apostles to abandon their boats and nets, in 
order to become fishers of men ? or was it a virtue which is now 
wholly out of date ? and is no lesson whatever now to be learned 
from that apparently fanatical saying,— If a man forsake not all 
that he hath, he cannot be my disciple? Consider, Keader, 
whether the following is not true. Many persons, and pecu- 
liarly teachers of religion, are liable to find themselves in a po- 
sition, where rules from without forbid them to follow freely 
the Spirit of God within them. A man who discerns this to 
be his own case, is called by God (more clearly than if it were 
spoken by thunder from a cloud) to give up all his worldly inte- 
rests, as Paul did ; and until he gains strength for this sacrifice, 
he stunts his own spiritual growth, and loses living energy. The 
same thing applies to all, who find the routine of their worldly 
business or profession to involve practices, which the Spirit 
within them condemns : if they are faithful to God, they will 
at all risks of worldly loss refuse consent to such practices. No 
greater trials of principle can in these days (when bodily mar- 
tyrdom is unknown) befal men who have wives and children 
depending on them, and whose sphere in life seemed to be 
fixed. To condemn those who shrink from the sacrifice, could 
not occur to any one who duly knows his own weakness : yet 
he would not the less sorrowfully feel, that such persons will 
not be counted worthy of promoting the kingdom of God. 

Nevertheless, there is no excellence in mere outward self-denial, 
when it surpasses what morality may claim : nor can anything 
but self-righteousness or morbid consciences be generated by en- 
joining in the abstract such sacrifices. Indeed, this may seem to 
be only part of a wider doctrine ; namely, that the great and 
universal spiritual duty is to Be, not to Act, nor to Suffer : a 
truth, the abuse of which may be reproved as Quietism, but 
which is nevertheless of much importance. Moral Actions have 
a value in themselves, and at any rate require no more in the 
actor than general sincerity of good intention : but the value of 
(what is intended for) outward Spiritual Action is often indefi- 
nitely small, even when very rightly meant. Transcendental acts 
of Duty, performed without Insight, — as, to give one's goods to 
the Poor or to the Church, — are of very doubtful value. Again, 
consider the attempt to improve the spiritual state of our neighbour 
by profitable and holy words: an attempt, which may result in 
pure mischief, not only if done unseasonably or indiscreetly, but if 
it is not a manifest overflowing of heart which speaks. The weight 
of words is not in themselves, but in the speaker ; and the les- 
sons which are not intended as lessons are often the most forcible. 



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If then we give our whole effort to he what God would have us, 
He will provide the ways by which our life shall redound upon 
others. The restless desire to attain " spiritual usefulness/' is 
very often a mere carnal ambition which imposes upon us. If 
w T e are entangled in this, it will too often happen, not only that 
we address ourselves to a divine work with earthly minds, but, 
what is worse, frame for ourselves a code of action to which we 
are spiritually unequal, and then, incur self-reproach as lan- 
guid and cowardly for shrinking from a task which we cannot 
profitably undertake. Not to harm our neighbours' souls is in- 
deed a primary duty ; but a majority of us will ordinarily best 
promote the edification of others as well as our own by concen- 
trating effort on our personal improvement. Much latitude is 
conceded by all to professed religious teachers, and a decorous 
respect is paid to their words ; yet it is notorious that the very 
same sentiment coming instead from a layman is often more 
effective : for the clergyman is suspected of speaking for his 
office' sake only. There is probably more knowledge in the pro- 
fessional man ; but love, not knowledge, is that which edifies : 
and to justify our concerning ourselves with the soul of another, 
a real and deep love is felt to be requisite. 

And this connects itself with the subject of Intercession. 
Concerning the actings both of Intercession and of Hope, valu- 
able hints may be gleaned from the history of a soul so full-grown 
as that of Paul, presented to us in the outpourings of authentic 
epistles. The topic of Hope is reserved for the next Chapter. 
As for Intercession : when the divine Spirit has so conquered the 
old or common nature, that though there may still be occasional 
conflict, there is no anxiety, but (under all ordinary trials) a calm 
foresight of victory as soon as any collision of desires is felt ; 
the soul, I suppose, overflows self, and commences cares or 
anxieties for others ; which are impossible, and their pretence 
hypocritical, while the self is still consciously but half subdued. 
Hence there came upon Paul daily the care of all the churches. 
Hence his fervent and continual prayers for the spiritual advance 
of his beloved children in the faith, and for the progress of divine 
truth. Nay, to judge by his letters, prayer for his own soul 
might seem to have been swallowed up in prayer for others. That 
this is the highest or limiting state, we appear as it were to 
divine. Accordingly Paul himself, while seeking reverentially to 
shadow forth the occupation of Messiah in the heavenly world, 
could imagine no loftier ideal of excellence, than that he was 
engaged in Intercession : a view, which at a very early date re- 
commended itself to the whole church. 



ON SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 



117 



A philosophical difficulty may nevertheless be here started. 
The soul (it may be said) not absurdly hopes that God will aid 
its own desires to be obedient to Him : but He does not give it 
a carte-hlanche, to ask for things which do not concern its own 
perfection. How can we possibly know, that He will fulfil our 
prayers for the bodily or even spiritual health of one dear to us, 
to say nothing of distant matters ? The reply does not seem 
difficult : We do not know that he will fulfil them. Then why 
do we pray ? Why, neither do we know that he will not fulfil 
them ; hence, when the soul is deeply moved, it cannot help 
praying for what it wants. Not to do so, would be an unnatural 
constraint : the full heart must vent itself to the Lord of Mercy 
and Love, who surely cannot disapprove of this. Nay, we know 
and are certain, that even though His inscrutable wisdom should 
see that the prayer cannot be granted, He would accept it, and 
we should be blessed in uttering it. 

It may still be asked, Why do we pray for things, about 
which we do not feel much concern ? This however I may leave 
others to answer : it certainly appears a mere dreary hypocrisy, 
like Fasting and Prayer at the word of command : yet something 
will be said on the point in the next Section under the head of 
Liturgies. It here suffices to remark, that " to pray because we 
think we ought to pray," is not really prayer, but at best is 
meditation or reverential homage. If a man has no heart for 
prayer, yet knows that he ought to desire certain things, let him 
muse until the fire kindles, and at last let him speak with his 
tongue. But when no fire is kindled, it is heathenish credulity 
to imagine that God will care for a verbally offered petition. 

It may also appear that after the earlier and most necessary 
steps of spiritual advance, the soul can profitably bear stronger 
views of the grander attributes of God, and takes more pleasure 
in contemplating them ; whence is derived a tranquil diguity to 
itself. Its joys also have less of excitement, but greater depth, 
continuity and evenness: nay their current is uninterrupted, 
though manifold sorrows may ripple on the surface, by impulses 
from without. At least this is that which a priori may be ex- 
pected, as agreeing with all analogy. So also it is in this 
stage that the magnificent researches of modern Science, which 
strengthen our powers of imagination concerning the extent of 
Existence, in time and space, and the pervading uniformity of 
Law, become peculiarly beneficial ; because there is no longer 
danger lest the personality of God, and his proper relation to 
the individual soul, should be lost in the dim Infinity which is 
spread out before the intellect. Then we can admire and 



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wonder at Him, as the Blessed and Only Potentate, dwelling 
in light which no man can approach unto ; and not at all lose 
the fixed assurance, that he dwells also in every contrite heart, 
and opens His ear to every cry of the hungering and thirsting 
soul. Thus also a reconciliation is finally brought about between 
Faith and Science, the Soul and the Understanding. God is 
recognized both without us, and within us. Man is seen to be 
essentially free, yet is felt both in right and in fact to be God's 
servant and friend. All that he has, is from God, and is to be 
cultivated for God : powers of mind are not to be left unused, 
any more than riches. 

There is certainly something wanting to the Ideal of the per- 
fect man, prevalent in religious circles : nor is this to be won- 
dered at. As long as it was supposed that Christ would in a few 
years return, to close this earthly scene : while the fields were 
ripe to the harvest, and the labourers were few ; — while a mes- 
senger to tell the truth, seemed of all things most urgently 
needed; no course was judged so serviceable, or so noble, as that 
the rich and cultivated man should abandon his wealth and his 
worldly calling, forswear his learning and his tastes, and become 
a preacher of the gospel. The total change of circumstances, and 
no small amount of experience, now give warning that this can 
only in exceptive cases be desirable. If such a person has 
dedicated his soul to its rightful owner, he will find some way of 
bestowing his energies in great measure for unselfish objects; 
either for external and immediate Utility, or tor the attain- 
ment of abstract, or for the diffusion of practical, Truth ; for the 
establishment of Eight and Justice, or in works of Love and 
Mercy, or in the unselfish cultivation of the Beautiful. Yet with 
many (unless I mistake) it is a sort of enigma, how Art and 
Politics and Science are to blend with the highest religious 
character ; and that, because our notions are unduly based upon 
those Scriptural heroes, whose position was too different from 
ours to make them any adequate pattern. I do not think it an 
exaggeration to say, that among ourselves the most spiritually- 
minded persons (if we speak of them in the mass) are apt to be 
more or less scandalized at zeal for Science or Pine Art in one 
whom they hope to be spiritual. They sigh over a good man, 
who lavishes his talents on such objects instead of devoting them 
to (what they call) the glory of Goci 3 a phrase which would seem 
to mean, — direct attempts to teach spiritual truth. They con- 
descendingly patronize an astronomer or scholar, who is reported 
to have some religious tendencies and to be orthodox , and if he be 
very enthusiastic in his own pursuits, they still hope, thatm spite 



ON SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 



119 



of this, he has " the root of the matter in him," and will gain 
some low seat among the redeemed. Such notions are only 
another development of the same error, which once sent men 
into deserts or convents, and misnamed long prayers " divine 
service." To sacrifice Imagination or Intellect, and to sacrifice 
Domestic Affection, are about on a par. That the human mind 
was meant to labour for the Useful, to contemplate the Beautiful, 
to possess itself of the True, and contend for the Eight, as well 
as to worship the Holy, or imitate the Bountiful One, seems to 
be quite an axiom of thought \ and wisely to blend all, as circum- 
stances allow, must be the highest human perfection. A true 
Faith believes without proof that all these things shall work to- 
gether for good; and that God, who is at once Productiveness, 
Beauty, Truth, Eight, Mercy, Bounty, and Holiness, is in them all. 

May w T e not here gain some instruction from that which is 
told of celebrated Italian painters ? — how they have, from mere 
love of their art, spent on a picture labour tenfold of what the 
set price required, and have preferred to live in extreme self- 
denial, rather than not execute it in their highest style ? This 
seems to typify the unworldly spirit, in which, when we are more 
perfect, we shall follow our trades or our professions, of whatever 
kind. There is a prevalent opinion, — 1 fear not destitute of 
foundation, that as a body the more religious part of our nation . 
is more sordid in its business-tone than the world. Possibly 
this may be interpreted, that there are among the former fewer 
instances of unselfish devotion to their worldly calling ; which 
they are accustomed to regard as not deserving their affections, 
but only fit to be pursued for its gains. It is principally in men 
who have no ostensible religious character that we see the self- 
devoting pursuit of some honourable profession : and these are 
now in England only too rare. For alas, there is such eagerness 
to get rich, that enthusiasm, for one's work, in and for itself, 
is scarcely credited by the majority ; and there are many neces- 
sary employments, which may seem almost incapable of calling 
out enthusiasm, and yet, most distressingly over- occupy both 
time and mind. I do not at all mean to say that every man's 
profession ought to be his absorbing passion : only, it may be, 
and that, on a religious ground.* It is certainly a narrow belief, 

* The germ of this sentiment is seen in Paul, who bids slaves "to do 
service with good will, as to the Lord, and not unto men." The precept 
shows how entirely he felt the meanest occupation to be sanctified by and 
to a religious heart ; and that if he were exhorting us moderns, he would 
enlarge it to embrace our several professions. Indeed this is not at all 



120 



THE SOUL : 



taken up on too slavish a principle of imitation, that when there 
is the deepest and soundest spirituality, the actions will procJaim 
this on their surface. Where the deed is lawful, so that the 
moralist is satisfied, the question for the spiritualist is not, what 
it is, but in what spirit it is done. An enthusiastic geologist or 
chemist or astronomer or sculptor, whose whole life seems to be 
absorbed in what many religious people would erroneously call 
the World, not only may be eminently unworldly, but may be 
serving God, and man too, more effectually than he could in any 
other way : for the evolving of Truth and culture of Imagination 
tend to elevate and perfect Man, side by side with the influences 
of direct Devotion. For nearly two centuries, men of Science 
have been our only school of Prophets. There is no war between 
the parts of the human mind ; and (other things being equal) 
he who best loves God will with most untiring energy and single- 
ness of purpose pursue whatever good work his genius has fitted 
him for. No one needs so little relaxation as he, in whose heart 
dwells the Lord of strength and of peace. 

§ 2. ON THE " MEANS OF GRACE." 

It cannot be doubted that we in this day are the spiritual pro- 
geny of Patriarchs and Prophets, derived by a genuine Apostolic 
Succession. As in Science, so in Religion ; we have borrowed the 
light of our predecessors, and it has kindled light in us. We 
see and believe by means of Prophets and Apostles, and yet not be- 
cause of them ; for though our life has come through them, it would 
not be life, if it were not now independent of theirs. The Mathe- 
matician enjoys the fruit of high intellects such as Archimedes, 
Newton, Euler, La Place ; and had not these men, and hundreds 
of congenial spirits, laboured before him, he would not now know 
what he knows : yet by their aid he so sees the whole truth from 
it simplest elements, that their names and their authority never 
enter the premisses of the argument which convinces him. Just 
so is it with the modern worshipper. Although he sees for him- 
self, lie gratefully acknowledges the essential aid derived from 
great predecessors, and feels the golden chain which binds him 
to the past. Consequently, neither can he overlook the last link 
of that chain, — the instrumentality by which his heart was first 
brought into sympathy with Psalmists and Apostles. And if so, 
he cannot despise or under-value those external media of spiritual 

a strained interpretation of his words in Rom. xii. " Not slothful in 
business, fervent in spirit serving the Lord:" that is: — serving the Lord 
by being not slothful, &c. 



ON SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 



121 



improvement, which, as transmitting feeling from soul to soul, 
might be briefly denoted as " means of Fellowship." 

But Fellowship, like everything else that is good in spiritual 
things, has been turned into formality \ and we are beset with a 
variety of competing " ordinances," which claim to be " means of 
grace." The most prominent are Fasting, Sacraments, Attend- 
ance at Liturgies, Prayer Meetings, and Sermons. With a view 
to most of these, many will press the close observance of Sunday. 

1. It is truly vexatious, eighteen hundred years after Paul's 
career, to have to fight Paul's battles against those who profess 
themselves not only his grateful children, but his unreasoning 
obedient disciples. It is indeed superfluous here to prove, what 
is on the face of the New Testament, that Sundays are not Sab- 
baths, that Sabbaths are no part of Gentile Christianity, and that 
Sundays have in the Scripture nothing to do with abstinence 
from worldly business. The Puritan School of England and 
Scotland shuts its eyes to the plainest facts, because it believes it 
to be usef ul to hold that Sunday is Sabbath, and Sabbath binding 
upon us. In vain shall we point to Paul's contemptuous dis- 
avowal of Sabbaths, and to his declaration that he who disregards 
sacred days is justified, so that he only disregard them to the 
Lord. In vain may it be proved from the Christian history, that 
until Constantine, Sunday was a working day with Christians. 
In vain will it be shown that all the great Reformers held the 
ancient and Catholic doctrine, that the observance of Sunday is a 
mere ordinance of the Church, not a command of God ; and that 
until the English and Scotch Sabbatarians (late in the 16th century) 
invented the Puritanical doctrine on this subject, it was unknown 
to the Christian Church. As long as Englishmen care more for 
supposed Expediency than for Truth, they will, through thick 
and thin, stickle for a divinely obligatory Sabbath, unless one 
show them that this falsehood has its evil and dangerous side. 

Our ears are dinned with the false cry : "The Sabbath, the 
boon of the working man." In many cases, say rather, his bane. 
He rests from labour : true : but he labours only so much the 
harder on the other six days. Physically, he would be better for 
labouring six hours on Sunday, and one hour less on every other 
day. Spiritually also this would be far better : — first, for the 
irreligious man. For the irreligious are tempted to make Sunday 
a day of carousing and sensuality ; and the more its sanctity is 
preached, the greater is this danger ; because it makes their con- 
science bad, and generally hinders them from getting any but 
bad companions, More sin of every kind in England and Scotland 
is committed on Sunday than on any other day of the week ; and 

Gr 



122 



THE SOUL : 



of this, the (so-called) Sabbatical Institution is in great measure 
guilty. — Then as for the less religious, yet conscientious man. 
The Sunday hangs heavy upon him : it is a stupid sleepy day : 
superstition forbids his even improving his mind during its 
hours; and with one seventh part of time left free, he si ill 
(strange to think !) has no leisure for mental cultivation. Puri- 
tanical notions about the Sabbath are thus at present the greatest 
of all impediments to the effectual education of the industrious 
classes. Thirdly, even for the sincerely religious poor, Sunday is 
far too long a day for continued spiritual thought. They have not 
inward energy enough to till up the time with it, and they covet 
to be in church as much as possible : very generally three " ser- 
vices" do not seem to them too much ; but this very fact proves that 
their souls are passive under it all, and get no more good than 
they might have from one. Par better would it be, to have on 
Sunday six hours of work, say from 6 to 9 in the morning, and 
from 5 to 8 in the evening ; with one meeting in church to last 
from 11 to 12. The working man might then have a pleasant 
relaxation on Sunday, with no time heavy on his hands. There 
would be hours enough for religious meditation and for the 
greetings of kinsmen, and there might also be an hour's more 
rest on every day of the week. Surely this would be both spiri- 
tually and physically better. 

It is thus pure fiction, that a Puritanical Sabbath is better for 
a working man than a Christian Sunday, such nearly as Christi- 
anity in its second century was glad to observe. But the mo- 
dern Sabbath tends a great deal more to the grandeur of a sacer- 
dotal body ; and this was felt by the instinct of those bishops who 
first moved Constantine to enact it. On an English Sunday the 
clergyman and the " minister" are in their glory. They are 
not conscious that this impels them so urgently to enforce the 
day ; b«t when we see the trumpery nature of the arguments, 
both from the New Testament and from expediency, on which 
they rest its positive moral obligation, it appears certain that 
there is some sinister bias ; and if so, I see not bow to avoid the 
opinion that — I do not say the individual, but the strong public, 
opinion on this subject, is generated out of the merely professional 
zeal of religious ministers. As military officers want larger 
armies and great wars, so does a professional clergy cry out for 
long Sabbaths, more churches, and crowded seats. These things 
are, with the few, means to a higher end ; but w T ith the majority 
the end most felt is, the increased dignity of the profession. 

Sundays are now a political institution : no one can propose 
to abolish them : but let every one try to make the best of them. 



ON SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 



123 



First, by abandoning the false pretence of their observance 
being a divine command : — itself an intrinsic incredible absur- 
dity, as well as without a shadow of New Testament proof. 
Secondly, by encouraging mental cultivation of the largest and 
most liberal kind on that day, and greatly shortening the prayers : 
— but of this, more will be said. Thirdly, by facilitating and 
inviting attendance at church, wherever masses of people are dis- 
posed to flock for the recreation of country air ; as at Richmond 
and Greenwich near London, and many other places near to 
great cities. Fourthly, by solemnly urging, that religion de- 
mands the whole heart for God on every day, and that no com- 
promise can be made by looking grave or dressing clean for one 
day. 

The truly spiritual, who turn many hours of the Sunday to the 
best purpose, generally value the institution ; for they, not unna- 
turally, neglect to inquire whether it does not take away from them 
on six days the time which it seems to give so liberally on the 
seventh. A few may possibly use the whole day profitably for 
purely spiritual action, but I suspect that they are very few ; and 
the more acute their sense of the sacredness of the hours, the 
greater the danger of misery from it. Personally T can testify, that 
for several years of my life, when a youth and very young man, 
Sunday was of all days to me the most painful ; because, with 
all my efforts to consecrate it, I could not practically reach up to 
my abstract idea of its sanctity. It also threw me into collision 
with my elders, and caused me to refuse obedience to them, 
under the idea that the Law of God constrained me. Justly then 
do T hate the Sabbatical fiction, as a cause of real sin to the 
anxious and well-intentioned, as well as to the careless and un- 
controlled. 

2. And is it requisite here to speak of Fasting? If any one 
after trial thinks that he himself finds spiritual benefit from such 
a practice, no one can blame him for continuing it. Yet it may 
justly make others watch more sharply, whether it developes in 
him Pharisaic and other Sacerdotal vices : and if they see him dis- 
posed to uphold hierarchical dominion and asceticism generally, 
they will have a right to say, that he has gone back from spiri- 
tuality into a system of carnal ordinances. On the other hand, 
a more offensive piece of impertinent domineering, in spiritual 
matters, is scarcely conceivable, than for a number of " divines" 
to meet and pass a law as to the days and hours at which other 
people, and indeed generations unborn, shall fast for an imagined 
spiritual end. Those who call themselves successors of the 
Apostles and defend such things, should at least point out in the 

g 2 



124 



the soul: 



authentic writings of the Apostles some instances in which they 
thus dictated to their converts. 

But what says Paul ? " If ye be dead with Christ from the 
elements of the world/ 3 [such outward ceremonies as he has just 
named, — meat and drink, holy days, new moons, and sabbath 
days,] " why, as though living in the world, do ye subject your- 
selves to dogmas, — Touch not ! Taste not ! Handle not ! — all 
which [dogmas?] tend to corruption in the using; after the 
commandments and doctrines of men ? Which things have in- 
deed a show of wisdom in will-worship and humility and neglect- 
ing of the body ; but are not of any value in comparison* to the 
satisfying of the flesh." The sense of some words in the Greek 
is contested ; and I do not pretend certainty that he means in 
the last clause ; — u adequate nourishment to the body is of some 
value ; while fasting is of no use at all, either to body or soul." 
But it is quite certain that the entire passage was intended to 
throw contempt upon the ordinance of Fasting, as upon other 
Asceticism, and exhort his converts to refuse subjection to those 
who tried to impose such things. Against the practice, as such, 
he evidently no more made war than against the ceremonial law, 
and he speaks of it without reproof, 1 Cor. vii. 5 ; but there is 
nof evidence that he himself looked on it as of any value. Of 
meats and drinks in general we may say with him,— Let every 
one be persuaded in his own mind : if he eat, let him eat to the 
Lord and give thanks : if he eat not, let it be to the Lord that 
he eats not ; and let him give thanks. It may be added, that 
according to Christ's precepts, whoever fasts must conceal the 
fact of his fasting. This entirely condemns Public fasts. 

3. Sacraments and Liturgies may be embraced in one thought ; 
for it is superfluous to argue against the pretended magical force 
of a Sacrament, until some tangible proof of it is adduced. 
Men's feelings towards Liturgies appear liable to go through 
several stages. The original rude and unspiritual feeling is that 
of those who do not attempt to pray with the heart, though they 
may devoutly repeat the words, but receive them • all as a sort 
of bidding to pray. Such is clearly the case with children, and 
with great numbers of grown people. Thus the Liturgy is to 
them, not a prayer, but an aid to meditation, and an instruction, 
by example, how to pray : as such, its use appears to be very 
great. They more or less intelligently think over parts of it; 

* Ovk iv rifxri tivl irphs ttX^cixov^v Gapuds. Coloss. ii. 20-22. 
f The fastings of Paul, 2 Cor. vi. 5, xi. 27, are both times enumerated 
"by him among involuntary hardships endured for preaching the Gospel. 



ON SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 



125 



and now and then really join in some prayer, especially in those 
for temporal mercies and for forgiveness of sins. Thus a Liturgy, 
like the old Law, is admirably adapted to those whom Paul calls 
" the children of the bond-woman," who have not yet received 
the Spirit of adoption ; and therefore fitly belongs to any very 
extensive or hereditary Church. 

But secondly, there are many who rise above this puerile state ; 
who reverentially essay to pray all the prayers, and believe that 
they succeed in it. These are those whom I have called the once- 
born children of God ; who, having a sound conscience and sin- 
cere mind, have yet no strong development of the soul. Their 
hearts do not prompt prayer actively, and it is rather pleasant to 
them to have petitions suggested to their intellect from without : 
and as they have no depth of spiritual sorrow or joy, they can with- 
out conscious hypocrisy play rapidly one after another all the modu- 
lations of an ample Liturgy. The most varied tones find in them 
an equal response : " Have mercy upon us, miserable sinners ! 
Oh come let us sing unto the Lord ! Sing we merrily with a loud 
noise ! Lord have mercy upon us ! Christ have mercy upon us ! 
We are tied and bound with the chain of our sins ! We thank 
thee for the hope of glory !" The doleful repetitions of a Litany 
do not pall upon their spirit, but seem to soothe it. Their hearts 
are as wax to be moulded by the recitation ; and though it is 
difficult to call this prayer, it cannot be denied that they have 
been in a devotional posture of soul. Whether they listen reve- 
rently to the sounds of a voluntary, under the " dim religious 
light' 5 of a stained window, or respond to the low chant of the 
cathedral " service," — seems to be nearly the same thing. They 
pray feebly for five hundred different things, taking no absorbing 
or strong interest in any. They do not pray because they want 
a thing, but because it is a duty : and certainly the process 
reminds them of God, enlivens their conscience, soothes their 
mind and refreshes it after the worry of life, tranquillizes all rude 
passions, and altogether, brings much moral benefit. It is an 
error to undervalue this ; the persons are engaged in an act of 
Eeverence, if neither in Prayer nor Praise. They wonder how 
any can disparage the excellent institutions of " our Church," 
and attribute it to an unreasonable presumption, bordering on 
impiety. And long habits of attachment to the same cling to 
them very frequently, even when they pass into the number of the 
twice-born, if the transition has been gradual, slow and ill marked. 

Thirdly, those in whom the phenomena of the new birth have 
been powerfully brought out, are often (and I should suspect, 
generally) thrown into uncomfortable collision with a Liturgy, at 



126 



THE SOUL : 



least such a one as that of the English Church. Their spirit 
rushes in one direction, when the Liturgy would call them in 
another. They vehemently want one thing, and are hereby made 
conscious how little they care for the rest of the five hundred 
things : then they feel ashamed and guilty for the lukewarmness 
of their prayers, and their hearts are made heavy by attendance. 
They have plenty of narrow but energetic prayer in themselves, 
and cannot bear this miscellaneous profusion from without : and 
when their minds deviate into meditations of their own, (far 
more profitable to them than such languid prayer could be,) they 
often have an unquiet conscience, and scourge their wanderings 
as a grievous sin. Besides, many things are probably felt as a 
positive offence, through some want of harmony between the 
joyful or hopeful state of the worshipper and the depressed and 
often depressing tone of the Liturgy ; which seems made for per- 
sons strong and copious in orthodoxy, but weak in spiritual life. 
I forbear to illustrate this, lest I needlessly give pain : for the 
remark is not directed against Liturgies as such : nevertheless, it 
tends to show how delicate is the problem of constructing a 
formulary which shall neither impede high devotion nor involve 
anything too peculiar.* 

A woman of fervent and transparent soul informed me, that 
she always, on principle, allowed her heart to carry her in prayer 
wherever it pleased, in spite of the Liturgy ; in which way she 
could always enjoy it more or less, by dropping all that was un- 
congenial. And this appears to be the transition to the fourth 
state; in which the person who has long struggled in vain to 
adjust his soul to the Liturgy, at length discerns that it cannot 
be ; that it is an unwise attempt ; that God does not ask it of 
him : and if still he sees a general benefit in the institution to 
others, and that there ought to be some such thing, then in con- 
scious uprightness before God he boldly assumes a freedom 
which he once would have thought profane : leaves off scolding- 
his mind for wandering, translates words into others more suit- 
able to him, and cares only for one thing, — that his heart shall 
rise to God, or brood over holy thoughts, whether in connexion 
with the public prayer or otherwise. ' And the same nearly applies 
to *he prayers of Scotch and Dissenting Churches, whenever they 
are intellectually constructed. But, it will be perceived, that a 

* The Lord's Prayer appears to be a perfect formula, as dictating the 
topics of fixed Public Prayer. But one party among us has made it a 
formality, by merely adopting its letter without the spirit, another dis- 
likes the Prayer for its meagreness. For a Liturgy, its imagined 
meagreness is its excellence. 



ON SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 



127 



person who attends public prayer in this spirit, is really " going 
to Church for example s sake he would get more benefit in 
private. Hence he does this out of the superabundance of his 
spiritual strength, as a charity to others : which, however possible 
now and then, is likely to become an unbearable tax for a conti- 
nuity. 

Be it however admitted ; there is possibly, beyond all these, a 
fifth state, in which the Spirit of Intercession has developed 
itself and a serene atmosphere has been reached; the Soul retains 
all its earnestness, and yet is so harmoniously blended with the 
moral Will, that the man can to a great extent determine the 
direction and force of his own spiritual affections. The Catho- 
licity of his internal experience enables him to accommodate 
himself to words either of confession and complaint, or of hope 
and joy, or of entreaty for others ; in the spirit of one, who is 
raised above the painful pressure of any one want, and who can 
calmly say, " Father, I know that thou nearest me always.' 5 A 
character thus perfect, would be able, if only the petitions of a 
Liturgy are right ones, to pray them all in turn. Such persons, 
it is to be feared, are very rare : (for where that holy spirit of 
Intercession lives, the whole man must be wonderfully perfect, 
nor would this be an unappreciable fact :) and if there are such, 
they must have gone through lower states in attaining their 
elevation, and will not represent it to be an easy thing to carry 
the heart and soul along with a various Liturgy. For these 
reasons it appears to me that fixed Forms of Prayer may with 
much truth be called useful, in the inverse proportion to the 
development of spiritual life. To the ignorant and to young 
persons they are of extreme importance, as instructing them how 
to pray ; but for these likewise, they ought not to be tedious. To 
the religious who are elevated the first step above these, they 
afford a time for vague and perhaps dreamy reverence, like the 
sensuous worship by music; but are profitable, chiefly because 
little attempt is made to use them as genuine prayer and praise. 
To the young spiritualist they are a painful burden; by the ad- 
vanced spiritualist they may be borne perhaps, by reason of his 
strength, but they are often or always a trial to that strength 
and in no respect a help to him. He may nevertheless find 
blessing : for when all the heartstrings are tuned to the chants of 
heaven, the soul will often respond sweet melody even to the dis- 
cords of heathenism. 

If however this is not all true, if there be some other side of 
the question, which is here overlooked, — still I am justified in 
protesting against that tyranny of public opinion, which stigma- 



128 



the soul: 



tizes as irreligious all who are indisposed to " come to Church,'* 
and hinders each from following the indications of his inward 
monitor. Under Church, I include Chapel ; for there is much in 
common. The Prayer of the Dissenting minister is less various 
in its topics and much shorter than the public Liturgy : these are 
advantages : but there is no better security that it shall stand in 
any relation to the existing state of the hearer. There are minis- 
ters perhaps, who, before prayer, try to bring the hearer's mind 
to the right tone, and then pray in the suitable key : and this 
appears to me the only plausible way. The Sermon or Address 
ought (I think) to precede the prayer, which should on no account 
seek to be comprehensive. Where the minister can follow his 
own judgment, much may be done for the better : — but then also, 
much may be for the worse ; all depends on the individual. 
Consequently, there is no justification of the new ceremonial law, 
which orders all to Church or Chapel, whether benefit be expe- 
rienced or no. Nay, the old phrase "divine service," (in Greek, 
" Liturgy 55 or public service,) expresses the prevalent idea. It is 
imagined that we are to go to Church to do some service to God y 
not, to get some good from Him : and this superstition stands 
firm, equally among Dissenters, unawares. 

It would be wrong here to deny that there may be persons, 
whose hearts are such gushing fountains of spiritual affection, 
that their private prayer is uniformly a full stream, as is in fact 
supposed in following a public Liturgy. But (as far as I am 
able to learn) this is with the majority of devout persons rather 
an exceptive case. Ordinarily the contrast is great between the 
private and the ostensible worship. For, except when the heart 
is peculiarly full, the prayer of earnest solitary devotion may be 
compared to a bird of short flight : it mounts up with sudden im- 
pulse, but before long stagnates or falls again. Moments of 
meditation seem necessarily interposed, before a new effort is 
possible ; so that it consists of many disjoined irregular breath- 
ings of the heart, not always momentary, yet seldom long, even 
though it be based upon the words of a book open before the 
worshipper. Hence, in a continuous system of public prayers, a 
very frequent wandering of the mind appears (to me, I confess) 
quite inevitable, a thing to be calculated on, because of the pre- 
vailing weakness of the worshippers. Even to keep up with the 
simplest and best known of formulas, — the Lord's Prayer, — is to 
some an unmanageable task, unless the reader were to occupy 
threefold of the time which is generally allowed, with pauses 
between the versicles. 

But after all, how much of Fellowship is there in public 



ON SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 



129 



prayer? It is difficult to say how little. Each worshipper is 
isolated : there is little or no mutual consciousness. When 
indeed a whole congregation is sensibly animated by one Spirit, 
then no doubt there is Fellowship : but that, it is to be feared, is 
so rare, as scarcely to deserve mention here. Nor can I at all 
admit the notion, that (as an ordinary thing) long prayers in 
private are that which the new nature dictates, in proportion to 
the energy which it displays. Indeed if we ask for what moral 
purposes the Soul is imbued with the love of God ; — the reply 
will be : first and chiefly, for its own sake, that it may attain its 
own best condition : but secondly, that it may work, in and for 
the world\ "with good heart, doing service, as unto the Lord, 
and not unto men." Most erroneous, and as I sincerely believe, 
most unscriptural, is the notion, that much continuous time is 
then to be occupied by what are called "religious exercises/' — 
long prayers, long public services, or any of those things which 
experience proves rather to generate Pharisaism. Paul recom- 
mends to his converts to pray always, rejoice without ceasing, 
and in everything give thanks, but we find in him no exhorta- 
tions to church-services, sacraments, fastings, or any formal pro- 
cesses. I cannot but think, that these things, as practically 
conducted, need to be reckoned with "the cares of this world, 
the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things," which 
blight the young gospel-blade : and the matrimonial analogy 
might here give a clue to the real position of things. Young 
lovers are so absorbed in long earnest talk, so anxious to win or 
sound one another's hearts, that they are drawn off from other 
business : but when their new relation is ascertained and their 
mutual affection is a fixed fact, they become the more energetic 
in their respective tasks because of their love ; which love 
would languish, if they were idle and tried to live upon it. 
Thus too the soul, when so conscious of its fixed union with 
God, as to be strung to a new and unusual pitch of spiri- 
tuality, (if not drawn aside by artificial doctrine,) runs with 
fresh alacrity to its common duties : and should they be such 
as thoroughly to engage the intellect, still in every interval it 
breathes forth desire, complaint, if not rather love and praise 
and hope : it remembers its Lord and its true home, and gains 
new strength to do and receive all in His name. Rule, habit, 
or lingering superstition, chiefly or alone, seem then to send a 
man to formal and set prayer : for he has a more continuous and 
involuntary worship. His Sun goes not down, be his day serene 
or stormy. As he walks the streets, as he enters company, as 
he changes his occupation, his inward spirit gazes upon his 

g5 



130 



THE SOUL : 



Eternal Friend, and is glad, even if his lips frame no word, nor 
his intellect any clear proposition. The Spirit itself pleadeth 
within him, perhaps in inarticulate utterances, until some new and 
deep want explains itself in his soul, and a fresh series of prayer 
begins. One thing only is essential to his heavenly intercourse, — 
that he shall be quite unobserved : and this very thing is some- 
times not easy to secure in his own church and his well-known 
seat : to make up for which disadvantage (as regards Prayer at 
least) some signal benefit ought to be enjoyed there. As to 
private devotions, it certainly is not to be denied that there are 
cases (known to each man) when he extremely covets to prolong 
them. By all means let him freely follow his own spiritual in- 
stinct : " Is any afflicted ? let him pray : is any merry ? let him 
sing psalms." Eut when long Devotions are not cried out for 
by the soul itself, they are deadening and tend to hypocrisy. In 
fact, some men's worst temptations rise out of such times : action 
and company is the healthiest state for them, except when the 
soul is carried into prayer as by a vehement flood. Tor church- 
rulers to prescribe long Prayer, (as many would now wish,) when 
they cannot give the Spirit of Prayer, would be tyrannizing in 
the dark, 

4. In regard to Special Prayer Meetings, little need be here 
said. It is obvious that their value must depend upon the har- 
mony of soul with soul. In theory and in the abstract I regard 
them as blessed companies : but they demand mutual trust, per- 
fect unsuspicion, a common and a pure enthusiasm. There is 
in them a revelation of soul, by which holiness may become as it 
were contagious, but which may make them intensely painful or 
very mischievous. Corruplio optimi est pessimiim. The time 
may be in store, when social worship shall ordinarily be a real 
outpouring of soul : but an immense revolution of opinion, and 
yet more of heart, must take place first. 

5. JBut the Sermon! Can any one say a word against this? 
Is not this at length the "means of grace?" — Header, must I 
ask whether thou hast ever heard a bad sermon ? one so dull 
and drowsy, that it was impossible to maintain attention : one 
so empty, that no food for heart or mind could be found in it : 
one so logical, that the soul was never addressed at all, but only 
the critical faculty called out : one so illogical, that the hearer's 
Understanding violently resents it and will not leave his Soul 
free to feed on the good food which is intermixed : one so un- 
charitable, as to turn the heart sick : one so full of gross carnal 
superstition, as to excite indignation, that Paganism and Formal- 
ism still live to vex us : one so vulgar, coarse and profane in 



ON SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 



131 



the manner of address, as to spoil good matter: one which 
makes Atheism seem preferable to Theism, by painting the Holy 
and All Merciful as an omnipotent devil who insists on being 
complimented ? Under all these things, I, oh Eeader, have 
groaned a hundred times : perhaps thou hast not. They are to 
me no small counterweight to the benefit of hearing sermons, 
because, unfortunately, I cannot make the preacher say or leave 
out what I choose ; and practically that is what we all want 
{more or less) to do. But let this pass, and suppose we have got 
a perfect preacher, — one of a thousand ; and what then ? 

Obviously and clearly, the preaching of such men is, more 
than all other causes together, a means of spiritual awakening, — 
of conversion from sin and of stimulating to an independent 
active life in the spirit. God forbid that I write one word to 
depreciate the exertions of our truest aids and champions. The 
great pity is, that they are so few, and that the same man is 
often so unequal to himself. However, not every pious and wise 
person makes a good preacher, profitable to hearers in every 
stage ; and it is absurd to treat it as a personal slight, if one 
does not get benefit from somebody's sermons. No doubt there 
are those who will retort ; " It is your own fault : go on until 
you find advantage from it," — as the quack puffs off his pills. 
The fact is that sermon-hearing is regarded as an end and not 
merely as a means ; it is to the modern Protestant, what the 
Sacraments were to the old Church. Was the minister eager 
for bis own honour and not for my welfare, when he was not 
satisfied by my assurance that I found private meditation, with 
an occasional book or a walk in the fields, so profitable, that I 
had no longings after his discourse ? No : but there was at the 
bottom of his mind the assumption, that there is some abstract 
duty in hearing sermons, as if they were an end in themselves. 
On the contrary it would seem that we ought all to grow up 
towards a state, in which we care less and less for human teach- 
ing ; or rather, come to select our own aids in the form of books. 
In the first stage of spiritual life, we are as infants, fed by the 
nurse's hand : but gradually, we ought to learn to feed ourselves. 
And so indeed of common education. The teacher is essential 
to children and desirable for youths ; but to keep the full-grown 
man under tuition would blight all intellectual fruit ; indeed, the 
whole use of higher teaching is, to call forth and stimulate per- 
sonal energies, in order that the hearer may very shortly need 
teaching no more. Occasional listening to a preacher will always 
be more or less coveted ; but it is very hurtful to imagine that 
we all always want a " regular ministry" to teach us. Nothing 



132 



THE SOUL : 



is more desirable for those who are already fully fledged, than 
that each should be driven out from the nest to seek his own 
food by soaring through God's wide heaven, instead of huddling 
together, as now, with closed wings, on the flat earth, gaping for 
morsels of meat, killed and cooked by another. When that other, 
who is the sole teacher, is, over and above, younger than many 
who are to be taught, — younger too in spiritual age, — the absur- 
dity becomes so manifest, that people betake themselves to the 
plea, that we ought to attend " for example's sake." But this, 
however well occasionally, degenerates into a very hollow system 
when it becomes habitual. 

Are there then no aids to higher spiritual progress, to be ob- 
tained from other men ? * Undoubtedly there are. It is not re- 
quisite to speak of intercourse by word of mouth with good men ; 
which, by reason of our shyness and dread of hypocrisy or its 
appearance, is perhaps ordinarily less profitable even between 
friends than it admits of being made. But the two inexhaust- 
ible sources of spiritual supply and stimulus, are Hymns for pri- 
vate recitation and Books : both having this in common, that the 
Soul is active, and selects from them what it pleases, in which 
they differ from all the preceding. The peculiarity of Hymns 
consists in their being adapted to rest in the memory. Hence 
they are available for those who cannot read ; moreover, even for 
one who can, they are of first-rate importance, because they 
accompany him everywhere, in darkness or light, at home or 
abroad. Historians judge the sentiments of a nation from its 
Ballads: much more is the devotion of a Church cognizable 
from its favourite Hymns. Well might Paul advise the Ephe- 
sians and Colossians to " teach and admonish one another in 
psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making me- 
lody in their hearts to the Lord.' 5 The traveller in his idle 
hours, the loiterer whom an unpunctual friend disappoints, the 
invalid who wakes in the night, every man in his odd minutes, 
who does not find holy thought to come unbidden, — yet if the 
memory be stored with hymns selected by the soul's own pre- 
ference, gets in them a soothing or elevating stimulus, as his 
case may require. Hymns are in fact the truest links that bind 
ancient and modern souls in one. Many of the Hebrew Psalms, 
or parts of Prophecies, have inspired pure hearts in every age. 
In modern times, great numbers of sweet and touching hymns 
have been composed by unlettered persons, whose tasks were 
solitary and silent. Our own language is rich in them, but in 
German (I understand) they abound still more, and are in versi- 
fication far from despicable. Not that elegance of form is essen- 



ON SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 



133 



tial to a hymn : the use of the metre is to facilitate memory, and 
if there be nothing in its composition to give positive offence, 
this is literary merit sufficient. — Hymns seldom become logical 
and dry ; hence they have a prima facie superiority for nourish- 
ing the soul, to prose books ; and on the whole, there is nothing 
to compare to them in this department. 

But inasmuch as some cultivation of the moral intellect is 
essential for spiritual progress, and some general cultivation of 
the mind is extremely desirable, Prose Works have their own 
place, as eminent spiritual aids. But it is needless to say a word 
more on a subject which everybody so well appreciates. 

What then is the sum of this argument ? That our first want 
is, the expansion of individual life. We need to see and know 
something for ourselves, and to learn to feed ourselves spiritually. 
To be dependent, is hardly to live. What would it avail, to be- 
lieve on the authority of some person, corporation or book, that 
my nature is weak, or that I myself have sinned ? that there is a 
God, or that he desires my moral perfection? Such second- 
hand conviction is not Faith, and would produce none of the 
energetic results of Faith : the ancients* would have compared 
it to a drunken man gabbling the moral verses of Empedocles. 
We need more of Nature in the soul ; that is, a reverting to first 
principles, a development of primitive instincts, and some in- 
creased confidence that there still lives a God to hear and teach 
us. Never shall we by mere herding together, or by leaning on 
authority old or new, make up for intrinsic weakness in each 
separate soul. Moreover, it is only by insight into the Present, 
that we can understand the Past. In political history and in all 
physical science this is acknowledged : one who knows nothing 
of the existing forces, in States or in unorganized Nature, cannot 
rightly discuss past events. So, if a chasm be gratuitously as- 
sumed between the spiritual action which we know and expe- 
rience, and that which animated apostles and prophets, — or, 
what comes to the same thing, if we know nothing of any spiritual 
forces at all within ourselves, — we shall for ever be in the dark 
concerning their minds and souls. But with more Individuality, 
more Independence of man, there will be more capacity to learn 
of God. Then we shall not aim (in theory, any more than in 
practice) to become little Christs or little Pauls ; we shall as 
freely disclaim it, as in literature the becoming little Homers. 
Such imitation does not tend to excellence but to stupidity. Men 
of little faith fix their eyes on the Past, as did the Scribes and 



* Aristot. Nic. Eth., lib. vii. 3,13. 



134 



THE SOUL. 



Pharisees : Faith gratefully and reverently acknowledges and uses 
the Past, but sets her face towards the Future. Those who build 
the tombs of the prophets, but aliedge that all inspiration is now 
closed, would in former days probably have aided to persecute 
them: those, on the other hand, who use individual prophets 
only as aids towards the Eternal Source of Prophecy, are the true 
imitators of those holy men. When we sympathize with God, 
and with the inmost yearnings of His devout servants, we can 
afford to smile, though mournfully, at the invectives of misguided 
zeal, if it blindly regard us as enemies of God. But let the 
songs of praise or of sacred complaint, which the pious of past 
ages have bequeathed to us, nourish our spirits and link us to 
them : let us hope and seek that the life of God may be in us, as 
it was in them, a guide into truth and an energy for action ; 
then shall our daily work be daily joy, and we shall eat angels' 
food. 



CHAPTER VI. 



HOPES CONCERNING FUTURE LIFE, 



One of the earliest speculations forced on the Soul during its 
infancy, related to a state after Death. The mysterious question, 
Whence came we ? necessarily suggests that other, JFhitlier go we ? 
but the attempt to give an intelligent reply does not in the first 
instance come from the Soul, but from the inventive and super- 
ficial Fancy. Owing to the constant association of Body and 
Soul during life, the Soul is supposed to go with the Body be- 
neath the earth, and the idea of a Hades or Tartarus is generated, 
When either the Understanding or the Moral Faculties begin to 
be more unfolded, a great change soon takes place in the views 
held on that whole subject. 

The most celebrated attempts to establish by means of argu- 
ment a doctrine concerning the Soul's immortality, come down 
from the school of Plato ; which, with various modifications, have 
been reproduced in modern days. There is no agreement among 
minds capable of appreciating these arguments, as to their 
validity. Metaphysical philosophers on the whole maintain 
them ; a majority of physiologists, and nearly all unphilosophical 
but not unintelligent Christians, reject them. To me the discus- 
sion loses all interest, from the fact that it is not addressed to 
the Soul, but to the pure Intellect, and is consequently unintelli- 
gible to the vulgar. But this remark needs to be expanded. 

Not Plato's celebrated discourse merely, but every modern 
attempt in the same direction (as far as I know) appeals only to 
facts of which the spiritual and unspiritual have equal cognizance, 
and uses arguments of (good or bad) logic, in estimating which 
the Soul is at liberty to be asleep or non-existent. We are told 
of the contrast of Mind and Matter, and that Mind cannot 
perish by reason of the dissolution of the body : and much more 
of the same kind. That such doctrines have ever seemed to me 



136 



THE SOUL: 



unmeaning words backed by very fallacious reasoning, may arise 
from my own obtuseness ; however that may be, they are (if cor- 
rect) truths of pure Science and in no respect doctrines of 
Eeligion. To judge of their accuracy, requires, not a pure Con- 
science and a loving Soul, but a clear and calm Head ; hence to 
go wrong about them does not indicate a religiously defective 
state, but a weak or ill-informed understanding. Now it is self- 
refuting to treat the doctrine as one of high religious importance, 
and yet to confess that those in whom the religious faculties are 
most developed may be far more liable to err concerning it than 
those who have no religious faculty in action at all.* On the 
contrary, concerning truths which are really spiritual it is an 
obvious axiom that " he who is spiritual judgeth all things, and 
he himself is judged of no man.' 3 This objection is so decisive, 
and apparently so obvious to the feelings of the soul, that one 
might have fancied no spiritual man could for an instant have 
felt religious interest in such arguments. 

Very different was the history of thought among the Hebrew 
people, although it started with a primitive conception of the 
Underworld, not sensibly different from the Greek Hades. But 
when prophecy had arisen, and pure moral reverence had sup- 
planted crude imagination, all hard ideas concerning a ghostly or 
rather material soul seem to have vanished, and the Underworld 
remained only as poetical imagery. Thus one Royal Psalmist 
pointedly avows that the dead can neither praise nor hope "in 
God ; and other unknown yet powerful writers harp on the same 
sad note.f Modern divines might seem to be incarnations of 
selfishness, if they were judged of by their fatuous doctrine, that 
all religion (perhap? all morality) is wrecked, if immortality be 
lost. According to this, Conscience is presumed to be non- 
existent, and Prudence to be the sole stimulus to action. The 
generous feelings of man, the love of Virtue for its own sake, 
and much more the love of God, are forgotten ; and it is sagely 
remarked, that such romantic principles will never take effect on 
the vulgar, who, if they are to be religious, must have a quid pro 
quo. And thus men who call themselves spiritual teachers — (all 
happily are not such) — degrade religion into a prudential regard 
for our interests after death. The mischief done by this selfish 

* Christians have added an argument of their own for a Future State, 
but unfortunately one that cannot bring personal comfort or assurance. 
A future State (it seems) is requisite to redress the inequalities of this life. 
And can I go to the Supreme Judge, and tell him that I deserve more 
happiness than he has granted me in this life ? 

f Isaiah xxxviii. 18, 19. Psalm cxv. 17 ; lxxxviii. 10-12. Eccles. iii. 19. 



HOPES CONCERNING FUTURE LIFE. 



137 



view in all its ramifications, would need a treatise to set forth. 
If the Christian belief of immortality, as a pure intellectual dogma, 
has had any beneficial effect, it is in a very different way. 
Namely, by ascribing One element of infinity to individual man, 
it gives him a contact, appreciable to the pure intellect, with Him 
who is all infinite; and thus allures the human soul to seek 
fellowship and friendship with that Eternal Spirit. But to re- 
turn to the Hebrews. We do not find all their Psalmists equally 
desponding concerning the soul's futurity ; and if it were possible 
to ascertain the dates of the 16th, 17th, and 49th Psalms, it 
might have some historical interest. In these we read, not 
indeed any abstract dogmas, but personal aspirations in a tone of 
confidence, based upon the soul's own love to God and know- 
ledge of Him. 

Ps. xvi. 8. 11 : "I have set the Lord always before me : be- 
cause he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. Therefore 
my heart is glad, and my vitals rejoice : my flesh also shall rest 
in hope. For thou wilt not leave my soul in the underworld, 
nor suffer thy saint to see corruption. Thou wilt show me the 
path of life : in thy presence is fulness of joy, and at thy right 
hand are pleasures for evermore." 

Ps. xvii. 15. " As for me, I shall* behold thy face in right- 
eousness ; I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness." 

Ps. xlix. 14, 15. "Like sheep they are laid in the grave; 

Death shall feed upon them ; but God will redeem 

my soul from the power of the grave ; for he will receive me." 

There may be some other passages of the same tendency, but 
none that rest on any different basis. The soul, conscious of a 
certain union with God, is thereby excited to the hope (more or 
less confident) that that union shall never terminate : and the 
peculiarity of such a view is, that the argument (if one may use 
the phrase) is utterly inappreciable to the mere acute logician : 
it is foolishness to him, " because it is spiritually discerned." 
This is as it should be. Can a Mathematician understand Phy- 
siology, or a Physiologist questions of Law ? A true love of 
God in the soul itself, an insight into Him depending on that 
love, and a hope rising out of that insight, are pre-requisite for 
contemplating this spiritual doctrine, which is a spontaneous im- 
pression on the gazing soul, powerful (perhaps) in proportion to 
its Faith ; whereas all the grounds of belief proposed to the mere 
understanding, have nothing to do with Faith at all. 

When we turn to the New Testament, — (where the doctrine of 

* I observe that Ewald translates it Moge — ! Oh might I behold ! 



138 



THE SOUL : 



the saints' immortality, as a fact, is unquestionable,) — to ask 
for the ground and root of the belief, we find Paul, as usual, the 
fullest source of knowledge, because of the various unfolding of 
his mind in bis numerous authentic epistles. Yet this doctrine 
has two sides with him, — one connected with the Resurrection of 
Christ, and one more obviously based on the older Hebrew view. 
Each will need some notice here. 

The 15th chapter of the 1st epistle to the Corinthians, is the 
well-known passage in which he elaborately developes the idea, 
elsewhere familiar to him, that Christian hope of immortality 
essentially depends on the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ. 
In modern days it has been understood as follows : " The resur- 
rection of Jesus was an external miracle designed to prove both 
the power of God to raise the dead, and his fixed intention so to 
do Paul however can hardly have meant this. If he had 
looked on the resurrection of Christ asPaley or Priestley did, as a 
miracle to be proved only by testimony, he would have anxiously 
gathered up and collated that testimony in an authentic form ; he 
would have given the names of the 500 brethren who witnessed it ; 
in short, his first business must have been to fix, at their earliest 
source, the fluctuating testimonies, before they became diluted and 
worthless. This he must have done, if his notions of logic had 
anything in common with the school of Paley. On the contrary, 
he cared nothing for Christ " after the fiesli^ but sought ac- 
quaintance with Him as a living ascended Lord : he tells the 
Galatians (among the proofs of his independent apostleship) that 
he carefully kept clear of the eleven at his first conversion, and 
received his gospel of God alone. For when it pleased God to 
call Paul by His grace and reveal His Son in Mm, immediately 
he conferred not with flesh and blood, neither went he up to 
Jerusalem to those which were apostles before him; but went 
into Arabia ; and preached Christ three years before he met any 
of the Apostles.* It is clear that Paul regarded himself to have 
adequate grounds for believing the resurrection of Christ, quite 
independent of human witness, and that he (in a certain sense) 
prided himself on that independency. It seems evident that to 
doubt the resurrection of Messiah was to him an intrinsic 
absurdity : he believed in it from Prophecy, and from its own 
propriety, or from personal revelations. Messiah was to be 
Judge of Living and Dead ; and how could such a one be holden 
by death ? Here then came in the Pauline doctrine of Head and 
Members : if Christ lives, his people shall live also. — Now this 
is an appeal, not to the logician, but to the spiritual heart. He 
* Galat. i. 1M9. 



HOPES CONCERNING FUTURE LIFE. 



139 



does not argue for something which a jury of physicians and 
surgeons might be summoned to decide, as Paley might seem to 
think : but it is really the old Hebrew view under u new phrase- 
ology, only the name of Christ standing in the place of God. 
While an Asaph or a Heman would have said : " Jehovah lives 
for ever, and I am his servant : He is my God and my portion : 
therefore I shall live in Him and where Jesus says : " God was 
the God of Abraham ; but He is not the God of the dead, but of 
the living ; for all live to Him :" Paul puts it thus : " Messiah 
was to triumph over the grave, and to say, 0 Death, where is 
thy sting ? Since then Messiah could not be holden of death, 
but is risen, I, who am a member of his mystical body, must rise 
also." And this may suffice as introduction to the other side of 
his view. 

That a purely historical is as unsatisfactory as a metaphysical 
basis for a spiritual doctrine, is obvious ; indeed, Paul gives us 
clearly to understand that the future hopes of the sou] were to 
be discerned by the soul itself, for itself, and did not depend 
upon man's wisdom, as a question of history does and must. 
"Eye hath not seen, (says he, 1 Cor. ii. 9, &c.,) nor ear heard 
the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him ; 
but God hath revealed them to tis by his Spirit ; for the Spirit 
searcheth all things, yea, even the deep things of God. Now 
we have received not the spirit of the worlds hut the spirit tchich is 
of God; that we may know those things tchich are freely given to 
us of God.' 3 It is evident that under the word we he includes 
more than his single self ; at least all whom he had above called 
adults, as opposed to babes in Christ : in fact he never claims an 
inspiration differing in kind from other faithful Christians. Thus 
in his judgment, those in whom the Spirit of God becomes 
vigorous and casts out the spirit of the world, gain an eye to 
see the unseen joys which God has prepared for those who love 
Him. 

There is another interesting passage which throws light on 
the processes of Paul's mind. " The Spirit itself (says he, Bom. 
viii. 16, 17) beareth witness with our spirit that we are children 
of God." So far, we have a fact, resting on the direct know- 
ledge of the soul itself : but he proceeds to draw intellectual in- 
ferences : — " And if children, then heirs ; heirs of God, and joint 
heirs with Christ ; if so be that [or, seeing that ?] we suffer 
with him, that we may also be glorified together." All seems 
now clear. He had (as far as he here tells us) no direct percep- 
tion of anything farther than that he was a " child" of God, and 
from this he inferred that he was to be "an heir" of God, that 



140 



THE SOUL : 



is, was to be a member of the future kingdom of Messiah of 
which all the prophets had spoken. 

Paul indeed may have had more of direct insight into this 
deepest of subjects than the passage last quoted denotes : God 
forbid that I should presumptuously limit the insight enjoyed by 
his most favoured servants. Yet his light does us little or no 
good, while it is a light outside of us : so long, we are depend- 
ing on the soundness of Paul's faculties. If he in any way con- 
fused the conclusions of his logic (which is often extremely in- 
consequent and mistaken) with the perceptions of his divinely- 
illuminated soul, our belief might prove baseless. Faith by 
proxy is really no Faith at all, and certainly is not what Paul 
would deliberately have recommended. Our real question then 
is not, what he believed ; but how far he gives us either aid or 
materials for exerting a Faith of our own. 

When a divine voice is said to have declared, " Because I live, 
ye shall live also — the mind which is conscious of Union with 
the Divine, feels weight and plausibility in the argument. But 
modern Reason considers those arguments alone to be cogent, 
which are appreciable by the unspiritual consciousness ; and has 
accordingly endeavoured to build up out of the fact of the resur- 
rection of Jesus, a logical demonstration of human immortality. 
Yet if we take the whole case as Scriptural orthodoxy represents 
it, the fact in itself proves nothing of the sort.* For Jesus was 
no specimen of common humanity, but a supernatural being, 
whose mother indeed was a woman, but his physical father the 
Supreme God. No one could expect such a one to pass out of 
life like other men, or even to die at all : and if after an incom- 
plete death, which stopt short of corruption, he was reanimated, 
with the scars of his wounds still seen in his palpable body of 
common flesh ; what is there in this exceptive phenomenon, that 
can avail even as a presumptive proof that common men, bora 
of human fathers and not demigods in origin — whose death has 
been complete, whose bodies have been dissolved — will rise again 
in heavenly forms, unscarred by the past, and incorruptible in 
the future ? What is there in this resurrection of a perfectly 
sinless man, every way singular in relations, character, and des- 
tiny, that can in itself imply that sinful men also, and indeed un- 
repenting sinners, will rise as he ? If death was the penalty of 
sin, the wonder is, not that a sinless man could not permanently 
be holden of it, but that he could be holden for thirty-six hours. 
The immortality of the sinful, certainly cannot be deduced from 
that of the sinless ; and how much less, if he was not merely a 
demigod, but a Divine Eternal Person in disguise ! 



HOPES CONCERNING FUTURE LIFE. 



141 



I have called this a modem argument : T believe it is at least 
unknown to the New Testament ; where it is only the people of 
Christ that are said to rise because he rose, and live because he 
lives. As far as this is concerned, (which seems to be the only 
Scriptural argument on the subject,) John and Paul have added 
nothing to the means of conviction and assurance attainable by a 
pious Jew. For no one will say that we more certainly know 
that Christ lives, than that God lives ; or that a union with God 
is less efficacious for immortality, than a union with Christ. The 
only possible question is, whether it is easier to ascertain our 
spiritual union with Christ than with God. Clearly it is not. 
Christ is not accessible to the bodily senses : granting all con- 
cerning him which any school of orthodoxy can wish, an invisible 
Christ, like God, can only be approached by the soul : and to 
ascertain our union with Him, or with God, is a problem of 
exactly the same order. 

I may indeed be told by Christians of one school, that Paul 
did not believe the miraculous conception of Jesus, nor his pre- 
existence before the worlds : nor yet do they. I know not whe- 
ther they will proceed to deny his sinlessness, and thus aim to 
fill up the breach of analogy between the sinless immortal, and 
the sinful mortal : certainly it would seem to me gratuitous cre- 
dulity, to admit a thing so unproveable and improbable, as the 
sinlessness of one who has nothing superhuman in his physical 
origin. But it is needless here to pursue the argument : for if 
any one supposes Jesus to be, however eminent as a man, still a 
sinful man — and therefore, neither our Lord, our Saviour, nor 
our Judge — he is forced to believe (at the least) such delusion 
and misrepresentation to pervade the gospel narratives, as leave 
him no ostensible right to receive the resurrection of Jesus as a 
fact, if the fact would ever so well serve his argument. 

Such remarks, I fear, may be felt as exceedingly painful by 
those who are accustomed to imagine a fixed logical dogma on 
this subject to be of first-rate importance, and even of necessity : 
but a little reflection as to the high tone of spiritual elevation 
maintained by the Hebrew bards, ought to suffice to show that 
that " necessity 55 is extremely exaggerated. But this is not all. 
Need we ask what sort of influence the current views exert over 
the irreligious? Are they less profane, for the dreadful doctrine 
of the Eternal Hell? Are not men also driven into a self- 
righteous belief, that they in some sense deserve heavenly glory, 
merely because they cannot feel that they deserve the awful alter- 
native which alone is treated as possible ? Again, if it be said 
that the fixed doctrine comforts us on the loss of pious relatives, 



142 



THE SOUL : 



is it forgotten what distress it inflicts on those whose near kins- 
folk die without clear marks of piety ? This proves nothing as 
to truth or falsehood : but when people appeal to the expediency 
and desirableness of the prevailing creed, it is not fair to take a 
partial view of the case. 

Some, however, will say : — " We discard the idea of Judg- 
ment and Punishment : but we still desire to retain the immor- 
tality of the righteous, as an external dogma, because of the ex- 
treme importance of this as consolation and support in the pros- 
pect of death and in other times of trial." — -That a firm belief 
of immortality, rising out of insight, must have very energetic 
force, I regard as an axiom ; but as an external dogma I cannot 
but think that its efficacy is prodigiously overrated. In this 
connection it is not egotistical to speak of myself. Seventeen 
or eighteen years ago,* I was to all appearance dying of fever. 
I firmly believed (if belief at second hand can be firm) that a 
blessed immortality, guaranteed by the resurrection and word of 
Christ, was about to open upon me ; yet so feeble was the effect 
of this belief, that it gave me not one throb of joy : calm re- 
signation to an inevitable but unwelcome event, and thankful- 
ness to that merciful Love which had revealed itself to my spirit, 
were my highest emotions. — But I will refer to another : a pure 
and passionate soul ; living, breathing and moving in divine 
things ; ever rejoicing in union with God in Christ, in theory 
anticipating eternal Glory; and yet to my certain knowledge, 
most thoroughly unwilling to die prematurely. This is only 
what may be expected from a faith on hearsay, however much the 
"person would be shocked at being thought not truly to believe. 

It is not obscure, why the well-conducted part of society so 
desires a proof of a future life addressed to the unspiritual part of 
our nature. The doctrine is valued, less by each for his own 
soul, than as an engine of government. Yet Bibliolaters have 
ostensibly the least right to press for this : since, if it is desir- 
able anywhere, it was eminently wanted in the Mosaic law, to 
restrain offenders, and to comfort good men who were in an 
embryo spirituality : yet it was not there given. Guilt was 
restrained only by temporal inflictions : and among ourselves 
also, beyond a doubt, crime is repressed in bold and wicked men, 
only by fear of the visible and present judge. Whether hell be 
in theory believed or disbelieved,f it has no practical power, 
except over the less hardened. But the attempt to turn Religion 

* Written in Feb. 1849. 

f That a vague fear of possible retribution from God, we know not how or 
when, is a wholesome restraint to crime and sin, I do not doubt: but this 



HOPES CONCERNING FUTURE LIFE. 



143 



into a system of State Police, is an impiety, which inevitably 
defeats its own end. Nor less does it desecrate divine Hope, 
to apply it as a means of softening the sorrows of the un spiritual. 
Natural sympathy is far more effective for consolation, than any 
of those conventional topics, poured forth professionally on an 
uncongenial mind. If Hope is to comfort men in their darker, 
it must live with them in their brighter hours ; it must gush up 
out of an inward fountain. I know it is said, that the poor are 
made more patient by the notion so current among them, that in 
another life they will get compensation for the hardships which 
they endure in the present : but this is to buy patience, by pro- 
pagating delusion. 

But do I then deny a future life, or seek to undermine a belief 
of it ? Most assuredly not : but I would put the belief (whether 
it is to be weaker or firmer) on a spiritual basis, and on none 
other. It seems to me a sort of first principle, that such a 
belief cannot justly rise out of anything but insight into God's 
mind, gained by a full sympathy of our spirit with God's Spirit. 
What we see at one time, we may remember at another, and such 
intellectual remembrance is of importance ; yet it is not the 
same thing, and is exceedingly inferior in energy, being intellec- 
tual only, not spiritual. The same applies to the report brought 
to us of what others have discerned : it serves to animate us to 
open our eyes and gaze after the same sight, but does not super- 
sede our personal vision. Nevertheless, I never knew* any one 
who professed to have attained (by spiritual insight) certain or 
confident expectations in this matter. There is indeed a dubious 
passage in Paul, which perhaps will express prevalent feelings : 
" We are saved by hope : but hope which is seen } is not hope ; 
for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for ? But if we hope 
for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.' 5 Rom. 

is quite different from the defined dogma which alone is valued by some. 
It would be instructive to learn, what sort of persons fear the torments of 
hell. I have known several instances of morbidly disposed and appa- 
rently good persons, who have been made unhappy by alarm ; but all lad 
people seem to me to think that they are not quite wicked enough for so 
dreadful a place. I cannot remember, as a boy, (when I read a great 
deal about it and believed everything that I read,) that I so much as once 
dreaded it for myself. One might almost doubt whether wicked people 
ever dread it for themselves. — A very few perhaps, after committing a 
great crime, are really oppressed with this horror ; whether for better or 
worse, it is hard to judge. 

* I now find Mr. Maccall, in an eloquent discourse, (No. 21 of The Peo- 
ple,) avow that Immortality is necessarily known to the religious mind by 
intuition: but he states this as a universal fact, and I am not sure that he 
means more than 1 have above asserted. 



144 



THE SOUL : 



viii. 24, 25. — Just before he had said: "Hope maketh not 
ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts 
by the Holy Spirit which is given to us." Eorn. v. 5. He 
cannot go without the inward witness, and does not really rest 
on dogma. If we farther ask, what is the actual experience of 
each faithful soul, it will possibly be found to bear a witness not 
very different from the following. 

The Soul which is wedded to its Infinite Lord, knows there is 
no presumption in thinking that He cares for it. Day by day, 
and hour by hour, it tells out its complaints, its wants, its 
thoughts, its fears, mixed with the sweet breath of praise or the 
sigh of dim longings, all understood by Him. Tea, He who 
searcheth the heart knoweth what is the. mind of the Spirit, 
which pleadeth for the saint according to the will of God. Out 
of a consciousness of permanent communion with the Eternal, 
rises a practical assumption of its indivisible union with Him, — 
a conception that it partakes of His nature, and can never be 
forgotten by One, whose infinity embraces the least of those who 
tave Him. Yet in the ordinary, and perhaps the healthiest state, 
there is no dwelling of the mind on its own prospects. "When the 
actings of love are purest, they rest most in the present,* in 
which they are too fully absorbed to allow much of either specu- 
lation or anxiety concerning the future ; as the child receives day 
by day its father's tokens of affection, and feels, that sufficient for 
the day is the good thereof. And in fact, if speculation concern- 
ing the future is attempted, it can take but one form; — the 
hope of more Grace, more Holiness, better Obedience, purer and 
deeper love, whether here or there, presently or in a distant age: 
no other Heaven is within the power of human imagination. It 
is not from the side of Self, but from parting with those who are 
dear to it, that the Soul begins to speculate on a future world : and 
when forced thus to speculate, and ask whether they and it will 
ever cease to exist, — cease therefore to love, to serve, to praise, — 
both mutual love and conscious blessedness must needs excite 
the wish of immortality. Some may even have anxiety and in- 
tense longing : but most, I suppose, have a certain yearning, that 
(if possible) their union with God may be made perpetual ; that 
is, not merely commensurate with earthly life, but stretching out 
beyond into a real eternity ; and the very possibility of such a 
thing, (not as imposed on the intellect, but as apprehended by 
the soul,) stimulates every holy effort. Faith also appears to gain 
an ever-increasing confidence in the good will of God to perfect 
us more and more ; and it is very w T holesome to nourish this ex- 
* I have seen this quoted as a remark of Fenelon's. 



HOPES CONCERNING FUTURE LIFE. 



145 



pectation : for the higher thoughts we hold of our nature and our 
destinies, the more fervent will be our upward effort. Herein 
we discern some probability, (increasing with the strength of that 
Faith,) that tbe highest state which the soul here reaches, is not 
and cannot be meant by God as its ultimate and absolutely 
highest ; but that his work begun in it must needs go on towards 
perfection, unchecked by the limit which we call Death. That 
God should as it were elaborately train a soul for serving and 
loving Him, and then suddenly abandon his own workmanship, 
when its lineaments were beginning a little to exhibit the hand 
of the Divine Artist, appears a harsh and almost cruel thought. 
Undoubtedly, if we reason from the analogies of organic nature, 
we shall come to an opposite conclusion ; but spiritual action in 
many respects is quite peculiar, and especially in this, that we 
cannot conceive of God as tying himself (so to say) by general 
laws, so as to deal otherwise with this soul than He would have 
done if it had been the only soul in the universe. In organic 
life, we often suffer pain or loss, from the mere operation of 
general laws which take no cognizance of our moral state : that, 
I say, we cannot imagine to happen as to spiritual relations. 
Hence no a priori disproof is felt from the arguments of physio- 
logy :* it remains as a thing not manifestly refused by God. For 
this therefore, from time to time, the Spirit within pleads, and 
knows that it will be accepted in asking, even if the prayer be 
ignorant. — Still, unless some clear conviction can be gained, that 
the thing asked is according to the will of God, the soul cannot 
have confidence that the petition will be fulfilled ; and to ascer- 
tain this by direct vision, is (to me hitherto) impossible : for to 
our blind eyes many things seem easy, which the Perfect Wisdom 
knows cannot be granted; and while the intellect hesitates on 
this point, the soul dares not to dogmatize. Confidence thus 
there is none, and hopeful Aspiration is her highest state. But 
then, there is herein nothing whatever to distress her : no cloud 
of grief crosses the area of her vision, as she gazes upward : for 
if her Lord, infinite in love and wisdom, sees that it cannot he, she 
herself could not wish it. While in such vigour of life as to have 
any insight into God's mind, she is also in vigour enough to 
trample selfishness under foot. In fact, it would not be selfish 
merely, but silly, to fret, that odd cannot be even, nor a creature 
be as its Creator ; and nothing short of difficulty insuperable as 
this, would lead to the refusal of so holy and simple a desire.f 

* See Note 1 at end of this Chapter, 
f See Note 2 at end of this Chapter 
H 



146 



THE SOUL : 



The general conclusion to which I personally come, is, that 
the state of Aspiration to which alone I attain, is perhaps the 
very best thing for me, until some other conditions of soul are 
fulfilled, in which as yet I am deficient. If selfishness mixes 
unduly in my desires, might not a greater certainty (especially 
one impressed from without) benumb the gut goings of the spirit; 
just as human love is easily sated and flags, if it be not pure, as 
well as strong? The Honourable Robert Boyle somewhere says 
quaintly : " I hold a piece of meat to my dog, that he may jump 
at it ; and the higher he jumps, the higher I hold it, to make him 
jump the more : even so does God hold out beyond our reach the 
soul's true aliment, eternal glory," &c. If the principle here 
hinted at be sound, a clear prospect of eternity may conceivably 
be the last reward reserved by God for faithful souls ; imparted 
then, but only then, when He sees that it could not produce 
lapses into unconcern, irreverent self-conceit, with all its train of 
abominations, or foolish and wrong neglect of earthly interests. 
But in the same proportion to our hopes concerning self, are our 
hopes concerning all spiritually enlightened souls ; all that are 
capable of obeying and rejoicing in God : and we have concern- 
ing them precisely the same comfort as concerning ourselves. If 
we can happily cast our own souls on Him who careth for us, 
there is surely no greater difficulty in so trusting Him for all 
who are dearest to us. Meanwhile, nothing but mischief can 
come from speculating how he will punish others ; which really 
amounts to sitting in judgment over them ourselves, as though 
we could read the heart, and could measure sin and temptation. 
Let us not repine that we get no answer to the questions, Are 
there few that shall be saved? and, What shall come to yonder 
man ? but suffice it, ourselves to live with God now, if haply we 
may live with Him to all eternity : or at any rate, let us love 
Him while we live, and live only to be conformed to His will. 
For if an eternity of holy obedience is infinite bliss, it can only 
be because every day of obedience is bliss. We therefore do not 
need the promise of such an eternity, as any bribe to be obedient 
and loving now: but either Heaven is an empty name and foolish 
delusion, or it is a Heaven on Earth to be God's true servants. 
In any case therefore it remains, to rest our souls on a faithful 
Creator, knowing that whether we live, we live unto Him, or 
whether we die, we die unto Him. Living therefore or dying, 
we are His. 



HOPES CONCERNING FUTURE LIFE. 



147 



Note 1, referred to at page 145. 

In a splendid article on the Ethics of Christendom (Westm. Review, 
Jan. 1852) the writer denounces " the old Hellenic method of study- 
ing the problems of the universe by fetching rules from the wider sphere 
(therefore the lower) to import into the higher. ... So long as this 
logical strategy is allowed, the Titans will always conquer the gods ; the 
ground-forces of the lowest nature will propagate themselves, pulse after 
pulse, from the abysses to the skies, and right will exist only on sufferance 
fvommight." — Por a fuller development of this extremely important sub- 
ject, one must look with hope and desire to the same eminent pen. 



Note 2, referred to at page 145. 

f If I labour under an error, the reader will be most likely to see 
through it by my expressing the error more distinctly. I therefore add, 
that I cannot feel sure, that Eternity (in the future, as in the past) is not 
as much an incommunicable prerogative of God as Omnipotence or 
Omniscience. Thus one who presses us with the question : " Ought we to 
be contented without knowing our immortality?" seems to me in danger 
of exerting himself to make us discontented with our creaturely position. 
''By this sin fell the Angels." This thought the old Greeks expressed by 
Qv7}Ta 5e? Qvt]Tov (ppove'iv, — " a mortal should have mortal ambitions." 



CHAPTER VII. 



PROSPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



In the course of the last hundred years, the Christian name 
has begun to extend itself over many barbarous tribes : first 
over the Greenlanders by Moravian missionaries, since then, as 
a result of the unparalleled naval power of England, over many 
islands in the Pacific, and in certain parts of South and West 
Africa. But over the old regions of India and Arabia it has 
evidently but little power ; and what is most startling of all, its 
prospects in Europe itself are externally darker than ever. In 
Spain, Italy, Prance, and Germany, it is hard to say that much 
belief of formal Christianity remains among the more educated 
part of the community, or to guess how deep a gross and fearful 
unbelief has penetrated among the lowest population of the 
towns. As for England and Scotland, it is notorious that a horrid 
heathenism has taken firm root in our town population also, and 
that millions have cast off all reverence for any of the claims of 
authoritative religion. Pacts so widely spread over the face of 
Europe cannot be lightly treated. Churches are built, but that 
class does not come to them which has cast off the Christian 
yoke : ministers may be sent to seek them out, but it must not be 
hastily assumed that they will be successful : hitherto, experi- 
ence is the other way, and the causes of spiritual difficulty de- 
serve analysis. 

The causes appear to me to be identical with those which en- 
counter Christian missionaries in dealing with acute Hindoos or 
Mohammedans ; namely, the unmanageable character of what 
are called Christian Evidences. The demands made on men's 
faith are indeed far greater than ever the Apostles made ; for the 
Apostles did not take a Bible in their hands, and say to the 
heathen, " Here is an infallible Book : to believe that every 



PROSPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



149 



word of this is dictated by God, is the beginning of Christianity : 
receive this, and you shall be saved. " But now, although our 
teachers do not all assent heartily to this way of preaching the 
Gospel, yet few have strength of mind or plainness enough to dis- 
own it : and this claim of Mechanical Inspiration enables every 
bold and sharp-witted man to carry on an offensive war against 
the Christian teacher, who will soon find that he has more than 
enough to do in repelling the infinite objections to which he lies 
open. The war is thus carried away from the region of the Con- 
science and of the Soul into that of verbal and other criticism ; 
„nd who can expect spiritual conversion from that ? 

But this is only the beginning of difficulty. Doctrine also has 
been built up into a system which aims at, but cannot attain, 
logical exactness. I need not enter into any questions of detail, 
and I barely hint at the Trinity and Incarnation, the Immaculate 
Conception of Jesus, his Vicarious Sufferings, the Pelagian con- 
troversy, and other matters which divide Arminians and Calvin- 
ists. No one, I think, can read the New Testament with fresh 
eyes, and not be struck by the fact, that the Apostles never 
encountered practical difficulty from the heathen or from the 
Jews on these points. There is not the slightest mark that they 
were assailed as polytheists or as contradicting themselves. It 
is evident that they did not hold as essential to Christianity any 
exact system of logical doctrine, which the opponent could 
attack as ^logical. To recognize the authority and headship of 
Jesus as Messiah, was all that they expected of a convert ; and this, 
not in connexion with any authoritative book that professed to set 
forth his words as an absolute law of truth. At least, during Paul's 
labours no such book existed. The convert gladly learned all the 
wise and holy thoughts which Paul had to impart; but while trust- 
ing his " private judgment 5 ' so far as to leave the faith of his fathers 
for Christianity, it did not occur to him to commit an act of moral 
suicide, by promising thenceforward to have no judgment of his 
own, but to believe everything that Paul told him. 

There is no book in all the world which I love and esteem so 
much as the New Testament, with the devotional parts of the 
Old. There is none which I know so intimately, the very words 
of which dwell close to me in my most sacred thoughts, none for 
which I so thank God, none on which my soul and heart have 
been to so great an extent moulded. In my early boyhood it 
was my private delight and daily companion ; and to it I owe 
the best part of whatever wisdom there is in my manhood. Yet 
after more than thirty years' study of it, I deliberately, before 
God and man, protest against the attempt to make it a law to 

h 3 



150 



THE SOUL: 



men's understanding, conscience or soul ; and am assuredly con- 
vinced that the deepest spiritual mischief has occurred to the 
Churches, — nothing short of a stifling of the Spirit of God (with 
few intervals) for seventeen centuries and a half, — from taking 
the Bible (or New Testament), instead of God himself, as our 
source of inspiration. Paul certainly did not contemplate this. 
66 Who then is Paul, or who is Apollos, But ministers by whom 
ye have believed ?" Paul was an inspired man ; but, in his view, 
so was Timothy, Philemon, Onesimus; so was the meanest 
Christian who was faithful. A spiritual man and an inspired 
man were with him the same thing. Inspiration was not infal- 
libility, nor did it consist in guaranteeing to them the contents 
of a book. That the writings of the Apostles were more pecu- 
liarly inspired than their spoken words, is a fiction invented in 
modern times for the service of controversy : while that the one 
and the other alike were not only fallible but sometimes erro- 
neous, an unprejudiced examination presently shows. Paul and 
Peter came, once at least, into rude collision. The interpretations 
of the Old Testament given in the New are very frequently 
fanciful and mistaken ; and the expectation of Christ's speedy 
return in the clouds of Heaven to bring about the general judg- 
ment, is a manifest error which pervades the whole New Testa- 
ment. When will men leave off the attempt to serve God by a 
lie ? To varnish over these and other plain facts in zeal for God, 
can only issue in confusion to our own work and damage to true 
religion. A calm consideration will presently show one who is 
not tied up from thinking, that as Paul or John might err in 
astronomy or geology, so might they in history or logic or meta- 
physics : nay, that they necessarily held all the metaphysics of 
their own age, without knowing that they did. In communion 
with God, their souls imbibed many holy feelings, and put forth 
holy actions ; and their reflective intellect shaped, into what we 
call Doctrine, the perceptions of their spirits. Unless the intel- 
lectual and logical processes had been infallible, (of which we 
have clear evidence before us to the contrary,) the resulting 
propositions could not be divine and absolute truth, even if the 
inspiration were the highest possible to human nature ; and when 
tliey did not encumber their Gospel with such pretensions, or 
elaborate an exact system of Divinity as a target for the enemy, 
it is gratuitous in their modern followers to do this. 

But let us suppose these two burdens cut away from the 
shoulders of the Christian champion. He does not desire to 
make the New Testament a law to the mind, nor has he any 
Corpus of Divinity which he needs to uphold in entireness ; he 



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advances as lightly equipped as Priestley himself : — what may 
we now expect from the true Theologian, when he attacks sin 
and vice and gross earthliness ? If we form an a priori concep- 
tion of the genuine champion of the Gospel from the New Testa- 
ment, we shall say, that he is girt with the only sword of the 
Spirit, the living word of God, which pierces to the dividing 
asunder of soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and is a discerner 
of the thoughts and intents of the heart. In his hands it is as 
lightning from God, kindled from the Spirit within him, and 
piercing through the unbeliever's soul, convincing his conscience 
of sin, and striking him to the ground before God ; until those 
who believe, receive it, not as the word of man, but as, what it 
is in truth, the word of God. Its action is directly upon the 
conscience and upon the soul ; and hence its wonderful efficacy ; 
not on the critical faculties, upon which the Spirit is powerless. 
Such at least was Paul's weapon for righting the Lord's battles. 
— But when the modern battle commences, what do we see ? A 
study-table spread over with books in various languages ; a 
learned man dealing with historical and literary questions ; refer- 
ring to Tacitus and Pliny ; engaged in establishing that Josephus 
is a credible and not a credulous writer ; inquiring whether the 
Greek of the Apocalypse and of the fourth gospel can have come 
from the same hand ; searching through Justin Martyr and 
Irenasus, in order to find out whether the gospels are a growth 
by accretion and modification, or were originally struck off as we 
now read them ; comparing Philo or Plotinus with John and 
Paul ; in short, we find him engaged (with much or little success) 
in praiseworthy efforts at Local History, Criticism of Texts, 
History of Philosophy, Logic, (or the Theory of Evidence,) 
Physiology, Demonology, and other important but very clinic alt 
studies ; all inappreciable to the unlearned, all remote from the 
sphere in which the Soul operates. And are these abstruse 
arguments the powerful and living word of God ? Is it not 
extravagant to call inquiries of this sort " spiritual," or to expect 
any spiritual results from them ? When the spiritual man (as 
such) cannot judge, the question is removed into a totally different 
court from that of the soul, the court of the critical understand- 
ing. Nay, the Soul may not choose by her own instincts ; it is 
a dishonesty to allow likes and dislikes to operate ; calm indiffer- 
ence is required, not impulses for or against alledged historical 
events : the question is one of external evidence. How then can 
the state of the Soul be tested, by the conclusion to which the 
Intellect is led ? What means the anathematizing those who 
remain unconvinced? And how can it be imagined that the 



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THE SOUL : 



Lord of the Soul cares more about a Historical than about a 
Geological, Metaphysical or Mathematical argument ? The pro- 
cesses of thought have nothing to quicken the conscience or 
affect the soul. More words are surely not wanted, to show the 
intense opposition of all this to the Gospel as conceived of by St, 
Paul. 

I have already had occasion to remark, how entirely indepen- 
dent of external evidence Paul felt himself to be, when he preached 
for three years without caring to meet the apostles, whose senses 
could give the best external witness to the resurrection of Jesus : 
and that he thus kept aloof from them, he many years after 
deliberately boasted, as among the proofs that his gospel and his 
apostleship came direct from God. I see not how to doubt, that 
he would have looked on an apparatus of learned evidences with 
the same contempt as on his Rabbinical books, and would have 
pronounced them all to be dross and dung. He would at all 
hazards have refused these weapons; for Saul's armour must 
needs encumber David. Nay, he would have espoused the cause 
of these modern Gentiles, who are so often " without God in the 
world, 5 ' and for their sake w T ould have vindicated a Gospel free 
from the embarrassments of critical erudition, level to their 
capacities, — or rather, addressed to the Soul ; which is often as 
active and susceptible in the poorest and most illiterate as in the 
wise and great. What means now the declaration, " Unto the 
poor the Gospel is preached 5 ' ? and what the boast, — (t I came 
not unto you with excellency of speech, or of man's learning' 5 ? 
Por concerning our modern Evidences, the poor and the illiterate 
cannot possibly judge, and the preacher cannot preach unless he 
is learned : so entirely has the Gospel shifted away from its 
primitive basis. And then, can we wonder that it is wholly 
bereft of its power to convince unbelievers ? 

Another important result of this unscriptural and unspiritual 
system is seen in the Christian Ministry. A minister in modern 
days is expected to excel others in what are called Theological 
accomplishments. Theology, one might have thought, was the 
Science of God ; but no : it is the sciences of Biblical In- 
terpretation and Historical Criticism. A person eminent in 
these becomes a Doctor of Divinity, — Sanctse Theologiae Pro- 
fessor. And yet these are topics, in which a man might obtain 
high ecclesiastical renown, though his conscience were seared 
and his soul utterly paralyzed. Though by courtesy called 
spiritual, the knowledge is simply secular ; and an immediate 
result of it is, that youth, however unspiritual, if only the cri- 
tical and logical faculties have been developed, steps into the 



PROSPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



153 



chair of the Christian teacher, and becomes ecclesiastically higher 
than age however spiritually exercised. Christianity has been 
turned into a Literature, and therefore her teachers necessarily 
become a literary Profession. Previous to Ordination, they may 
be subjected to some literary ordeal; they may also be required 
to profess orthodoxy and to be morally respectable ; but this is 
all that can be attempted in a public system. Thus in result, a 
national clergy cannot be expected to excel ordinary Christians 
in any spiritual qualities, but only in learning. How then can 
they be expected to exert any high spiritual influence? Many 
Dissenters imagine that this evil is caused by the Uuion of 
Church and State ; but the same evils appear in their Academies 
and Churches : naturally not so glaringly, and yet in substance 
as truly. Age and spiritual experience are, with them also, 
subordinate to critical cultivation; and plainly because, with 
them also, Christianity has become a Literature.* 

How opposed this is to every thing in primitive Christianity, 
not Paul alone testifies. By every writer of the New Testament 
it is manifestly presumed that the historical and logical faculties 
have nothing to do with that faith, which is distinctive of God's 
people. Everywhere it is either stated or implied that the 
Soul or Spirit of man is alone concerned in receiving or rejecting 
God's revelation. Unless we can recover this position, we have 
lost the essential spirit of apostolic doctrine ; and then, by 
holding to the form, we do but tie ourselves to a dead carcass, 
which may poison us and disgust mankind. 

To keep and to get Historical Faith, are different problems. 
He who has been educated in it and never has lost it, throws the 
burden of disproof upon others : he believes, till some refutation is 
shown him. Hence mere indolence of mind suffices to keep him 
in his father's (historical) faith : and without any such indolence, 
he is generally kept in it, if he have any keen feelings of the 
spiritual glories of Christianity. But if a man have no hereditary 

* I have been thought here to undervalue mental culture and scientific 
accomplishment in ministers of Religion : but that is not my intention. 
I believe that the only essential qualities for them are Age and Spiritual 
Experience ; nevertheless, it is of very high importance that a considera- 
ble fraction of them should also have a large and liberal cultivation ; without 
which, the rest will become narrow and fanatical. But in the individual, 
as in human history, religion must be a Life, long before it can approxi- 
mate to the character of a Science; and a knowledge of human nature in 
general seems to be far more valuable to a religious teacher than any 
special set of facts. Indeed much that is currently called Theology, 
appears to me suited only to bring barrenness, degeneracy, and contempt 
upon Religion. — (Second Edition.) 



154 



THE SOUL : 



faith in it ; if he was born a heathen or a Jew, or has cast off all 
reverence for his national Christianity, from seeing so much 
hypocrisy and worldliness in it, and knowing nothing of the 
good ; — then he casts the burden of proof the other way : he dis- 
believes, until somebody shows him valid reason for believing 
things marvellous and beyond his experience. It is absolutely 
impossible to recover the tens of thousands who have learned 
to scorn Christian faith, by arguments of erudition and criticism. 
Unless the appeal can be made directly to the Conscience and 
the Soul, faith in Christianity once lost by the vulgar is lost for 
ever : what could the very chiefest of Apostles do to bring it 
back? They never converted one soul by learned proofs; and 
why should we dream that they would attempt it now, or could 
succeed ? If we continue to do as we are doing, — if no action of 
a totally new hind is set up, — the present course of affairs must 
go steadily forward, but with accelerated velocity, in proportion 
to the increase of mental sharpness or physical destitution : a 
real black infidelity will spread among the millions, — an infidelity 
of the soul to God, of the heart to virtue, — until the large towns 
of England become what Paris is. And as for the cultivated 
and philosophic, what else will they become but poetical Pan- 
theists ? acknowledging intellectually a plastic Spirit or (as it 
were) Life in the Universe, but just as empty of the moral affec- 
tion towards God, which has been the great animating principle 
of Christianity and of the highest Judaism, as if they were 
avowed Atheists. 

But it will be said : " What are we to do ? we are not 
Apostles, and how can we speak as Apostles ?" I reply : if you 
wish to be a follower of the Apostles, and can seize and keep 
loth the form and the life of their teaching, — well : do so. Imi- 
tate all the early preachers of Christianity. In teaching about 
God and Christ, lay aside the wisdom of the wise : forswear 
History and all its apparatus : hold communion with the Father 
and the Son in the Spirit : from this communion learn all that is 
essential to the Gospel, and still (if possible) retain every propo- 
sition which Paul believed and taught. Propose them to the 
faith of others, to be tested by inward and spiritual evidence only ; 
and you will at least be in the true apostolic track. — If however 
you meet (as I confess I meet) insuperable difficulties here, in 
the attempt to hold fast, on such a basis, the form of their Gos- 
pel ; then solemnly do I say, Oh God most High, let us not lose 
the Spirit also ! At present, we are trampling down the Spirit 
in an attempt to retain the .Form : with how little success even 
as to that mean object, our countless divisions prove. 



PEOSPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



155 



The tangle in which we find ourselves, and which (it seems to 
me) must be boldly cut, and can never be untied, is this : — we 
cannot reason as the Apostles did, unless we could recover the 
Metaphysics and Logic of the apostolic age. This is now to us a 
matter of erudition : with them it was a medium of all common 
thought to rich and poor alike, except to a few highly-cultivated 
men. Modern research and experience have wrought a revolution 
in all our notions of Evidence. We have been forced to choose 
between easy belief of miracles, and so admitting far more 
than those of orthodoxy ; or difficult belief, and so criticizing 
those of Scripture with a severity of which no Apostle dreamed. 
We are also far more scrupulous and fastidious in the sort of 
evidence which we can admit in each subject. We cannot take 
Astronomical proof of a Physiological proposition, nor Chemical 
proof of a Moral one : we have learned the divisions of the 
Sciences. But Plato did not hesitate to offer Grammatical proofs 
of the Soul's Immortality ; and the ancients in general were 
prone to give Moral proofs of Physical truth, or perhaps Physi- 
cal explanations of Moral facts. We now know that though in 
their higher development the Sciences osculate, yet (to the human 
mind) their bases are quite independent, the specific facts of each 
being furnished by a specific sense or informant : and a result 
of this is, that the idea of Historical Religion is seen to involve 
as essential a contradiction as Historical Astronomy or Mathe- 
matical Religion. Every Science has a History ; but cannot be 
History, nor can History be it. As to Historical Religion, we 
find in it two incongruous elements, iron and miry clay. The 
iron is the pure morals and spiritual doctrine, of which the con- 
science and Soul take cognizance ; and this is at once the strong 
part and the precious part of Christianity: being concerned 
Eternal Truth. The miry clay is the historical element, of which 
the Soul can take no cognizance at all ; which is concerned with 
with the accidents of Time ; which is to be dealt with by critical 
erudition (according to our notions of Evidence), and therefore is 
essentially out of the reach of the great mass of mankind.* How 
can we then include the latter element in Religion at all ? This 
mixture of the Historical with the Spiritual effectually forbids 
formal Christianity to be a pure spiritual system, and lames its 
spiritual energy. 

* All the attempts to found historical fact on spiritual evidence, when 
analyzed, present an argument which runs thus : " It does my soul good 
to believe such and such external events ; therefore such events are his- 
torically true." This is speciously called " the argument which rests on 
the adaptation of the Christian scheme to the wants of our nature" (For 
fuller explanation, see Chapter I. which is added to the Third Edition.) 



156 



THE SOUL : 



That the metaphysics (or current philosophy) of early ages, 
and of the Apostles themselves, was here in irreconcileable oppo- 
sition to ours, is clear beyond dispute. If an Englishman of 
this century, however devout and morally wise, were to declare 
that he had learned by communion with God the truth or false- 
hood of some external event, said to have happened in a distant 
time or place, (as a Virgin's immaculate conception, or some- 
body's impeccability,) he would be thought a hopeless fanatic or 
monomaniac* It is a first principle with us that the spiritual 
faculties discern spiritual things only, and cannot teach worldly 
and external truth, which essentially demands the aid of the spe- 
cific bodily senses. Nor would it any the more satisfy us, if the 
person asserted that the knowledge was imparted to him in a 
supernatural trance or mesmeric rapture : for we should ask how 
he discriminated his revelation from a dream or dosing fancy ; 
and until he explained this, and gave us the means of testing and 
verifying the accuracy of this new faculty of his, his statement 
would go for nothing. Now it is clear that in ancient times no 
call was made for this discrimination, nor for any verification 
at all. A person who professed to have a vision was believed 
outright, provided that the moral and spiritual doctrine connected 
with it seemed satisfactory: for spiritual men then judged by 
the Soul all things that stood in any spiritual connexion, even 
those which in our view manifestly cannot be made independent 
of Sense or of the common Understanding. 

And here, (if I meet with a reader of that stamp,) I may be 
told that our deviations from the old ways of reasoning are indeed 
lamentably great, but that we ought therefore to throw away our 
modern Philosophy, as false and impious, and adopt afresh the 
Philosophy of the Apostolic age. This will be said seriously and 
devoutly by thousands of women, and by men of feminine under- 
standings ; yet I do not hesitate to assert, that whoever holds 
this language, is (just in proportion to his influence) actively 
righting against the souls of men — little as he knows it, — and 
helping to propagate heathen darkness. He virtually tells us, 
that we shall not have God in our Souls, except by the sacrifice of 
our Tinder standings. Hereby he does not any the more enter the 

* Of late years a sect has been heard of, called the Lampeter Brethren, 
xvho are said to believe a certain Mr. Prince to be an Incarnation of the 
Most High. Such pretensions however are rejected by all sound-minded 
persons without examination. We do not wait to ask whether Mr. Prince 
offers evidence by miracles, or from prophecy, or by eminent holiness of 
life, &c, &c, but we repudiate the idea as obviously and intrinsically 
incredible. 



PROSPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



157 



kingdom of God himself, but he hinders others from entering it. 
As the old Jews " pleased not God, and were contrary to men," 
forbidding the Gentiles to be saved, unless they would accept the 
law of Moses, so have these moderns a zeal for God, but not 
according to knowledge. 

First of all, it is wicked so to sacrifice our understandings : and 
secondly, though possible in an individual case, it is quite im- 
possible on a large scale. — It is a faithless thought, that God has 
so constructed our nature, that its different parts are essentially 
in conflict : and the result of such a wilful sacrifice of the under- 
standing, might be a wretched, incurable, drivelling superstition, 
or even any amount of moral corruption, if the remonstrances of 
the understanding are thus put down by authority. It is not 
into modern English orthodoxy, nor into an enlightened II o- 
manism, that such a sacrifice might plunge us ; but into what- 
ever is ugliest in the darkest Eomanism : for the check to black 
superstition being once broken in pieces, we are left at the mercy 
of accident, as to how far we may go. To sacrifice the Under- 
standing will never produce true Religion, but only Fanaticism. 
Now the Apostles and their contemporaries made no such sacri- 
fice. They breathed the philosophy of their own century ; and 
if we are to imitate their spirit, we shall abide in ours, and not 
engage the two parts of our nature in a fatal civil war ; which 
they neither did nor approved. The " vain philosophy" which 
Paul deprecates, is that which the Soul spurns as unspiritual, — 
namely, the pretence of a sanctification from Fastings, Ceremonies 
and Bodily Exercise or Asceticism : Coloss. ii. Nor has any 
man a right to invest with a divine sanction the philosophizings 
of Paul or of John. It is clear that Paul and Gamaliel, John 
and Philo, held common principles of logic and metaphysics; 
which belonged to each apostle by the accident of his age, and 
not by revelation from God. 

But secondly, such a method of solving our difficulties is im- 
possible. Within certain limits, the Will no doubt has controul 
over intellectual opinion, namely, when the evidence on which an 
opinion rests does not meet us everywhere, but in certain places 
only. Then we can purposely shun that evidence, and fill our 
minds with what is of opposite tendency ; in which way men 
bring themselves sincerely to believe many things, which it is for 
their apparent spiritual benefit to believe or for their worldly in- 
terest to profess. But this power of the Will is not omnipotent. 
Three centuries ago it was able to sustain a man in the disbelief 
of the Copernican, and in the belief of the Tychonian theory; it 
is now, on the contrary, quite unequal to such an effect on a 

I 



158 



THE SOUL: 



mind which moves in educated or half-educated circles ; because 
the certainty of truth in the Copernican or rather Newtonian 
system has permeated all cultivated thought : hence the Will 
cannot avoid the evidence or hinder its effect on the judgment. 
Precisely the same thing is true of those logical principles, which 
pervade, as axioms, all modem accurate investigation. In every 
step forward which the Sciences make, in all their harmonious 
results, in all their practical applications, we have perpetual veri- 
fication of the truth of the great principles by which their pro- 
cesses are animated : and the conviction of this has sunk deep 
into the hearts of all, who, even as artizans only, behold the 
achievements of practical science. It is thought a great thing 
for a man to stake his life on the truth of his religious faith. It 
is not a great thing, but a matter of every day, for common men 
to stake their lives on the truth of scientific propositions ; which 
propositions would be quite uncertain, if any doubt rested on the 
soundness of our scientific foundations. He who knowingly sets 
Eeligion into contest with Science, is digging a pit for the souls 
of his fellow men. Except the more ignorant or rash, all pro- 
bably will allow this : a sufficient proof indeed of it is found in 
the actual state of Theology. Why else would men load them- 
selves with the unendurable burden called Christian Evidences ? 
a mass of investigation, which, if it is to be calmly and thoroughly 
judged, requires some ten years' persevering study from a culti- 
vated intellect in its prime. Why all this effort for Theological 
Colleges, and instruction in learned Divinity, except that it is 
felt to the very bottom of our minds, that external miracles can 
only be believed upon external proofs ? And this is a conviction 
too profound, ever to be got rid of by any resoluteness of the 
Will to return to a more infantine metaphysics. 

Eeligion can never resume her pristine vigour, until she be- 
comes purely Spiritual, and, as in apostolic days, appeals only to 
the Soul : and the real problem for all who wish to save culti- 
vated Europe from Pantheism, Selfishness, and Sensuality, (such 
as flooded and ruined ancient Greece,) is, — to extract and pre- 
serve the heavenly spirit of Christianity, while neglecting its 
earthly husk. Our Deists of past centuries tried to make religion 
a matter of the pure intellect, and thereby halted at the very 
frontier of its inward life : they cut themselves off even from all 
acquaintance with the experience of spiritual men, and their re- 
ligion necessarily vacillated between that of Plato and Aristotle. 
Practical Christianity was as nothing to them, because they took 
those divines at their word, who said that it all depended on his- 
torical faith \— which in fact is as needless, as it is confessedly 



PROSPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



159 



insufficient. Let this truth be avowed, and a preacher, animated 
by the spirit of Christ and Paul, will have plenty to say, alike to 
the vulgar and to the philosophers, appreciable by the Soul. 
Then he will be able to keep clear of Historical and other extra- 
neous inquiries, taking for his guide through entanglements this 
single principle : to render to the Understanding the things that 
belong to the Understanding, and to the Soul the things of the Soul. 
Then he may speak with confidence, of what he knows and feels ; 
and call on his hearers, of themselves to try and prove his 
words. Then the conversion of men to the love of God may 
take place by hundreds and thousands, as in some former 
instances. Then at length some hope may dawn that Moham- 
medans and Hindoos may be joined in one fold with us, under 
one Shepherd, who will only have regained his older name of the 
Lord God. Then finally, the long schism of Jew and Gentile 
may be healed, and the hearts of the fathers may be turned to 
the children, ere God comes to smite us both with a curse. 

I well know that (if this book be read) people will exclaim, 
that I am advising them to throw away Christianity itself, when 
I make light of its historical and miraculous side : and none will 
be more clamorous to this effect, than those who care little about 
that spiritual life which Paul lived, and which is here set forth 
as essential Christianity. Nowadays men are generally thought 
fanatical, whose souls are in sympathy with Paul's : and I feel 
certain that this book will meet with at least as much dislike 
(not to use a harsher word) because it lays down certain Christian 
experiences as matter of fact, as because it treats as unimportant 
those things which are indifferent to the life of the Soul. Answer 
to God, ye who think yourselves on the side of Paul and John ; 
who say of yourselves, " The Temple of the Lord, the Temple of 
the Lord, are we — do you believe in Sanctification of the Spirit 
by Peace and Communion with God ? in the New Birth of the 
Soul by believing in God ? in the Pree Grace of Him, who loved 
us before we loved Him ? in Justification of the sinner, in the 
midst of his sins, by simple Paith in God ? in the permanent 
Union of the believing Soul with God ? what know you of the 
love of God shed abroad in the heart by the Spirit, and of the 
Hope thence arising ? or of man's insight into the heart of God, 
when he has received somewhat of that Spirit which searcheth 
even the deep things of God ? of a Paith that overcomes the 
World ? of a Spirit that guides by a higher rule than Law ? 
Such sentiments and experiences (not propositions) are the true 
heart of Christianity : and if the reader hold them not, he 
may haply have the shell of Christian truth, but he has not the 

I 2 



160 



THE SOUL: 



kernel. If he rightly knows them, he will not say, "They are 
all worth nothing, without a belief in Historical and Metaphysical 
paradoxes." 

Alas 1 what extension of Christianity can be expected among* 
our neglected millions, when men in high ecclesiastical places 
eagerly promote sacerdotal inanities ! when zeal is called out for 
Episcopal Power, for Baptismal Regeneration, for Mechanical 
Apostolic Succession ; nay, for Episcopal Eevenues and lordly- 
pomp ; when the higher clergy are exposed to the taunt of loving 
the splendours and greatness of this world, and therefore of not 
having the love of God in them ; when not only Mechanical In- 
spiration is ascribed to the Bible, but a power of Mechanical 
Consecration to the hands of Bishops and Priests; nor only 
immaculate truth to " all and everything" in the book of Com- 
mon Prayer, but extreme importance to everything in the Rubric ! 
The heart sinks at the infatuation of such extravagances, while 
sin and crime and hardness of heart are abroad among us. 
Meanwhile, it is well if the Soul's present union with God in 
peace and joy and sanctification is only secretly despised, and 
not denounced as hypocritical or fanatical rant, by those who 
display zeal for the Church and for the doctrine of the Trinity. 
Yet of what use would Baptism or Bishops or the Church or tie 
Trinity or the promise of Heaven be to us, if the soul had here 
no union or sympathy with God ? If earthly things have been 
tendered to us, and we receive them not, why should God show 
us things beyond the grave ? and if we have not been faithful in 
that which is our own, who shall commit to us that which is 
another's ? To rise to the full dimensions of the Jew, is surely 
pre-requisite for those who aspire to the stature of Christ ; and 
even the Jew thirsted for God, found peace with Him, loved 
Him, rejoiced in Him, clung to Him. Yet, after the first blaze 
of apostolic Christianity, the heavenly flame instantly paled, the 
Churches declined, form and rule grew up, Bishops became proud, 
superstition increased, controversy raged, persecution began, this 
World became the prize for which the Churches fought, ecclesi- 
astical dominion took deep root, darkness overspread the earth, 
polytheism invaded what should have been God's kingdom, and 
cruelty, sensuality, ambition and avarice hid beneath Priests' robes. 
Devout individuals there always were, whose spiritual life was in- 
dependent of the prevailing system : but no public and visible 
ameliorations took place, except very partially, where a little 
Freedom was obtained ; until the great Insurrection against 
Authority, to which the name of Luther has been attached. The 
Eeforination brought about much good, till the forces of Free- 



PROSPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



161 



dom which animated it were again chained down; and then 
commenced a new decay, and a sapping of spiritual faith, alike 
in Germany and in England. Is it not historically manifest, 
that Authority has been the bane of Christendom ? Authority ; 
which, when established as a church-rule, means that we are to 
prefer Sense to Conscience, ostensible presumptions to spiritual 
insight ; that we are to subject our mature to our immature 
convictions, progressive knowledge to some fixed standard in the 
past. To set up other men's inspiration as our law, is to dis- 
own that teaching of God, to which alone they owed their emi- 
nence. Christians were certain to degenerate, the moment they 
began to worship apostles and books and church-rules and pre- 
cedent and tradition, and thus to sip at other men's buckets, 
instead of drawing living water from the true fountain, God him- 
self. Better would it have been to retain peaceably in the church 
shoals of Judaists, Docetists, Gnostics, Cerinthians, Yalentinians, 
and every heterodox name w T hich Theology hates, than to ac- 
quiesce in the belief that all God's inspiration had been drunk 
up by the apostles, and drive out into corners and overwhelm 
with contumely (as we also now are apt to do) the only men who 
might have secured that Freedom, without which there can be no 
Justice and no Love in a community. So Christ's church, where 
all were to be brethren and where no one was to bear rule, was 
turned into a kingdom of this world, where the few ruled over 
the many ; while the many liked to have it so, and applauded 
the cruel and wicked punishment of those who would not be 
subject. So too the passions of princes and the struggles of 
party have dictated rigid forms of orthodoxy, which secure no 
one spiritual quality of soul, and which Satan would subscribe, if 
occasion required. So now they strain out of God's ministry all 
who have scrupulous consciences, and swallow down the world 
unstrained ; and while men frown or tremble at Eree Inquiry and 
stop their windows against the light of Criticism, they do not 
blush to enunciate, that whoso receives not the words to which 
they give assent, hath not received the love of the Truth, that he 
might be saved ! Might not one call on the Powers of Darkness 
to rejoice, that Darkness calls itself Light, and religious England 
believes it ? 

But alas, it is not the Church of the State only, that is para- 
lyzed. None of the Churches, except in some small measure the 
fanatical ones, address themselves directly to the Soul. Nearly 
all the teachers of that Gospel, which once scorned the learning 
of this world, confound worldly sciences, — the domain of erudi- 
tion, — with spiritual knowledge and faith. They appeal to the 



162 



THE SOUL. 



Intellect, not to the Soul, in order to establish a spiritual religion ; 
and try to force propositions into the mind, instead of bidding 
the heart freely to expand in the light and glory and love of God. 

Surely God has a noble army of faithful men, who would 
follow the right, if they did but see it ; but many an old idol has 
to be broken, many a mental struggle to be gone through. Oh 
brethren, (if there be any whom I may dare so to address,) learn 
that inspired words were not meant as premisses for syllogisms, 
nor as ready-made weapons against heretics, nor as barriers 
against free thought and feeling ; but as torches that kindle new 
souls, so that the child in the Spirit is as truly inspired as the 
parent : for the heart of man is still young ; the Spirit of God 
has not died out. The Bible is a blessed book, rightly used : yet 
the Bible may be causing more spiritual evil than any other book, 
if by it you smother the Holy Spirit within yourselves, and con- 
demn those who love God. A great revolution of mind is wanted. 
The kingdom of God is not meat and drink, nor sermons and sab- 
baths, nor history and exegesis, nor a belief in the infallibility of 
any book, nor in the supernatural memory of any man ; but it is, 
as Paul says, righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. 
And he who in these last is minded as Christ, is accepted with 
God, and shall at length be approved by men. For to the life 
of God neither belief in miracles availeth anything, nor unbelief; 
but a new Creation ; and Faith that worketh by Love : and as 
many as walk after this rule, peace shall be upon them and 
mercy, and upon the Israel of God. 



THE END. 



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